


No War Should Be Fought Alone

by draylon, Sinick



Category: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Video Games), Middle-earth: Shadow of War (Video Games), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2019-06-11 19:49:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 68,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15322992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draylon/pseuds/draylon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinick/pseuds/Sinick
Summary: Shadow of War shows Ratbag running away from Talion, and that's the last we see of him.Ever wonder where he might have gone?- Author: Sinick. Co-Author: draylon.





	1. Breaking Point

**Author's Note:**

> Because we couldn't add a link to the story's title:
> 
> [“No War Should Be Fought Alone”](https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/FBN8b0XykD88WXoQlsqLqSk6SM6BYGLdKyZyCw9xJBd) _\- Talion_  
>   
> 

*

“That’s the point.”

That was all Talion said to Ratbag’s disbelieving cry of “You _broke_ him!” To his shocked protest, “I’d rather _die_ than live like that!”

That was all. Just that. Level and grim and matter-of-fact. Like Brûz wasn’t right there in front of them: a shattered ruin cowering in the dirt, bawling and babbling, covered in tears and snot.

Just that cold. Cold as a dead Man.

No! The Man Ratbag had always known could _never_ be this cold!

This was so much colder. Cold as an _Elf,_ dead for thousands of years.

That was when Ratbag _knew_. Knew for fucking sure he’d finally lost the savage, silent war he’d been fighting all along: fighting a ghost, for the heart and mind and soul of the Man he’d grown to...

“C’mon, Ranger,” Ratbag suddenly heard himself husking through a tight throat. His voice sounded detached, coming to his ears as if from a long way away. His face was frozen as he turned away from the wreckage of Brûz. “Let’s get out of here.”

He risked one last glance up at Talion, half-afraid he’d see the ghastly glow of possession in the Man’s eyes, half-afraid he _wouldn’t._ “This is giving me the creeps.”

Then he turned and ran. Ran from the stranger Talion had become, from the heartless thing the Wraith had made of him.

Because Ratbag was, after all, a Coward.

*

Ratbag, well on the scrawny side all his life, had only survived either by keeping himself beneath the notice of the bigger Orcs, or - in more recent years - by throwing his lot in with someone much stronger than himself.

Talion… Ratbag shied away instinctively from the merest thought of the Man who once had so very warmly occupied so very much of his thoughts. Now, Ratbag flinched visibly at the stab of agony that accompanied any such thoughts, an anguish that was somehow more than mental, was physical and real: a lingering ache in his throat just like someone had tried to choke him, a dull pain buried deep in the hollow base of his chest where ribs and breastbone met.

Ranger… the _Olog_ , was all Ratbag had left now. So Ratbag tramped head-down after his former fellow-Overlord, as at every crossroads the Olog chose the most direct route east and north out of Gorgoroth: drawn in his enormous crony’s wake as volitionlessly as rubbish after a retreating tide.

What the hell else could Ratbag do?

*

Days of restless, ceaseless walking later, even Ratbag’s wiry stamina was starting to fail him, after so many leagues of shuffling along in his companion’s broad shadow, half-choked in the road’s dust. Despite mounting weariness, still Ratbag kept going, locked into a dismal silence. And why not? It wasn't as though he had anything else to do with his life.

Besides, every slow, shambling step put more distance between him and that horrible, frozen moment of realisation that had torn everything that mattered from him, everything that had taken so many slow and hesitant years of shared warmth to build.

Not the slowly rising tide of bass grumblings, more and more uneasy in tone as the days wore on; not the way his travelling companion was shaking his head and muttering to himself under his breath in his strange tongue; not even the more and more frequent glances R… the _Olog_ turned his way - eyes narrowed in something that might have almost looked like worry on a less stony face - none of it made any impression on the numbing fog that had fallen on Ratbag, body and brain, as he trudged along, gaze vacantly tracking whatever happened to pass in front of his face.

As yet another meaningless day drew to a close, at last Ratbag dimly noticed that the parched, baked-brick sameness of the landscape had fractured into rocky upland hills sharply cut with narrow gorges, all covered with a patchy carpet of low, stunted trees. It looked like they were finally leaving the plateau of Gorgoroth behind.

A few hours after nightfall, the Olog’s booming footfalls, slow but as monotonously steady as an oarmaster’s drumbeat, ground to a halt, before turning aside from the road into some scrub-filled gully that seemed entirely random to Ratbag. There the Olog halted for the night, his huge bulk dropping to a seated position with a groundshaking thud, his silhouette towering black against the stars like some silent, stony statue.

Abruptly Ratbag couldn’t keep his days’-long silence for one more minute. Because, even in the privacy of his own skull, he just _couldn’t_ keep calling the Olog _that_.

Of course, Ratbag knew his old partner-in-crime understood Common Speech and Orcish perfectly well: how else could they have run the Núrnen fortress together? But it didn’t make raising the subject any easier now, especially since so many days had passed between them on the road, and all of them spent in complete and - for Ratbag - utterly uncharacteristic silence.

“Look, uh...” he faltered back into that silence, and swallowed, staring down as his hands wrung themselves together seemingly of their own accord, until he somehow forced himself to start again, “...Ratbag knows _you_ get what he’s been saying to you all along, you’re not stupid, but you know Ratbag, yeah? You know Ratbag jokes around a lot.” He tried for a smile, but right now, it felt about as mirthful as a skull’s grin; he dropped it like a hot coal and hurried on, “Reckon after all we’ve been through together, it’s not right, going round just... slapping names on you, not when you’ve already known Ratbag’s name for ages now.”

He eyed the hulking silhouette expectantly. When it just eyed him back, he spread both hands wide, palms out, in a mute ‘Well?’ gesture.

He’d expected the answer to be no more than a syllable or two: the simple declaration of a name.

When the answer he received was in flawlessly-articulated Common Speech, “My name is Az-Harto,” the shock was enough, for the moment, to break Ratbag clean out of the toxic cloud of apathy that for days had shrouded him from the world.

“Fuck me,” Ratbag whispered, gaping openmouthed at the self-proclaimed Az-Harto, before taking a deep breath and building up steam to a proper crescendo, “Fuck me dead and chuck me in the vats! You sneaky _shrakh!_ Why haven’t you ever bothered to talk to Ratbag _before?”_

Immense shoulders lifted in a slow shrug, and the reply, when it came, was nonchalant. “It was unnecessary.” The wide mouth split into a sly grin, baring teeth that were only small compared with the rest of that boulder-like face. _“You_ were ‘the brains of the gang’.” 

*


	2. Somebody's Wanted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're thrilled to share an amazing piece of cover art by **[editedcopycat](https://editedcopycat.tumblr.com/post/176320813232/some-fanart-that-i-did-for-draylons-and-sinicks)!**  
>   
> 

*

Az-Harto was still an Olog of few words, but Ratbag did coax out of him that he came from Seregost - well that was hardly news, everyone knew all Ologs came from there - and that he was returning there - and that was no surprise either: just because Ratbag didn’t care about it, didn’t mean that he’d completely failed to even notice the direction Az-Harto had been heading all this time.

What _was_ a bit of an eye-opener was that it turned out he wasn’t making for the capital fortress after all, but for somewhere else. But he wouldn’t say much about their destination, just that it was “Not Khargukôr. I have kin in the mountains. In a hidden pass. Few Uruk-hai have ever heard of it.” After a pause where he fixed Ratbag with a considering stare, he added, “But _you_ would be allowed to live. Because of you, I live. I have been gone too long. I return now. I will be welcomed.”

Well, then. Not that Ratbag would know how _that_ felt! He’d never had anyone who would actually want him, not without circumstances putting them into the unfortunate position of owing him a bloody life debt first!

Only… that wasn’t quite true, was it?

***

“Ratbag?” Talion said, squinting as he strode forwards, out of the fresh Núrnen sunlight and into the gloom of the fortress. He looked older, much more stern and severe than the Man Ratbag had known before. The Orc supposed that was right enough. After all, between their ‘then’ and ‘now’ had fallen quite a passage of years.

His head tilted to one side. _“Ratbag?”_

Even after all this time the sound of Talion saying his name sent a thrill through him, the way it always did. Ratbag dropped down from Az-Harto’s shoulder where he’d been perching, casting aside his spiked Overlord’s helmet with a flourish as he went.

Ratbag spread his arms and felt himself baring his teeth in a wide, welcoming, grin. _Ta-da!_ “Thought I recognised that voice!”

Although - when all was said and done, Ratbag might’ve just as easily _not_ recognised him. When Talion had first entered the fortress and made his imperious claim for power, drawing his sword and standing his ground, and then when he’d bellowed:

“This fort belongs to the Bright Lord now!”

the figure he’d cut had looked to Ratbag exactly like every single blue-blooded Tark or Elf or other over-privileged _prick_ who’d ever set himself up in single combat against a veritable army of Orcs, while having nothing behind him in the way of backup, nothing except maybe the odd magical sword and also always, _always_ an ingrained and unshakeable belief, however misplaced, in his own inherent superiority. That type of fellow - well, they’d always blended together into a generically homogenised kind of heroic blandness as far as Ratbag was concerned. There’d been little or nothing left of the quiet, unassuming Ranger he’d spent time travelling with before.

It was no wonder that, just for a moment, Ratbag had had trouble placing him.

It was no wonder his attention had wandered. Ratbag shook off the moment and grinned teasingly. “So much to catch up on,” he drawled, “Where do I start?”

Talion’s eyes narrowed and his expression turned rueful, exasperated. That was more like it! Ratbag would’ve been a bare-faced liar if he said he wasn’t enjoying his old companion’s discombobulation, just a little bit. When Talion was dealing with Ratbag he’d always worn those looks of frustration a lot, and, in common with almost everything else, they looked _good_ on him.

“How about _your death?”_ Talion demanded, and if Ratbag didn’t know better, would have sworn that a note of aggrieved reproachfulness had crept into his tone.

“Getting hit by the Hammer?” Ratbag scoffed, but that was only on account of Az-Harto being there. Even though Az-Harto had seen full well for himself the state Ratbag had been in following his run-in with the Hammer, he still felt there was a certain amount of face needing to be saved in front of him. “Pff,” he said. “That was a headache at most.”

“Mmmm.” Talion had looked sceptical at the time, but he’d had a lot more to say on the subject later, after they were alone. Once the question of ownership of the fortress was settled and no longer in doubt, he’d swiftly hustled himself and Ratbag out of the great hall and into one of the nearby anterooms. He’d grabbed Ratbag by the shoulders and propelled him forwards, clearly intent on making some kind of point from the way he was manhandling him.

It occurred to Ratbag as he was moved masterfully along, that this wasn’t so much an aggressive manhandling on Talion’s part as a possessive, marking of ownership, sort of thing. You might even say… a _claiming_ of him.

Barely through the door and he was shoving Ratbag back against the nearest wall. Then his hands were on him, everywhere: running up and down his arms, his flanks; in Ratbag’s hair - carefully examining the new row of metal staples at the side of his forehead, then grasping at his throat -

No doubt about it, this was a highly proprietorial manhandling.

Talion dragged Ratbag’s head round and forced him to face him. “If getting hit by the Hammer gave you ‘a headache at most’,” he said, his voice shaking with some kind of barely-suppressed emotion, “then _why didn’t you come back to me?”_ His eyes, as he stared him down -

\- locked gazes with Ratbag -

\- pleaded with him -

almost looked like they were flashing a bit, too.

(Admittedly, Talion had always been an intense and ardent Tark bastard, but even so that last part was no more than a trick of the light, most probably.)

Still, what could Ratbag say to him? Why hadn’t he come back? Because of, well, _all sorts_ of things: ‘because at first Ratbag couldn’t’; ‘then he heard you’d gone away over the sea’; and later, ‘the truth is that he _tried_ to forget about you, because the way you were carrying on, he was sure you must already be dead.’

Leaning forward Talion searched his face, still waiting for an answer to his question. He was very close now, and with his grip clasped tight round Ratbag’s neck, could place the Orc wherever he wanted him. Ratbag sighed, relaxing into it. He knew that Talion would do - or not do - exactly he pleased, from here on in. The thing was out of Ratbag’s hands now.

It had unnerved him at first. Of course it had, given the life Ratbag had led. Knowing himself - _allowing_ himself - to be so utterly reliant on another person’s mercy: that had been a real sticking point, that went against all his Orcish instincts, and every painful piece of life-experience he’d had instilled in him. But Ratbag’s past experiences had never involved anybody remotely like Talion, had they? And he’d come to see something else in the way the Ranger handled him. There was, as before, a proprietorial sense of ownership. But there was also a kind of warmth, familiarity. To Ratbag it had begun to feel oddly… intimate.

And the truth was, he rather enjoyed it.

Ratbag tilted his head back, letting Talion know he could do what he wanted with him. His gaze was fixed on Ratbag’s mouth and the Orc watched him through his eyelashes, wondering whether, hoping all the time that Talion might want to - 

Because he’d done that before. One starry night, crisp with frost. They’d been in occupied territory, near one of the heavily-armed fortresses of Udûn, or out on the Black Road maybe: Orcs and Uruks everywhere with no chance to start a fire, and Ratbag sitting there regretting the lack of sleeves on his outfit of bone and leather armour. His battle-sandals had no front or sides to them either and he was shivering. Then Talion, without saying anything, had got up and sat down again beside him. He’d pulled his ragged cloak round Ratbag’s shoulders and drawn him close, and when Ratbag had looked up at him, unsure and half-frightened, stammering his thanks, he’d shaken his head and with kindness in his eyes had pressed their lips together for a long moment. It was the first time for Ratbag, who had never even dreamed of such a thing; and so shocked, surprised and delighted was he, that after it was over, a thing that nearly never happened, happened. Ratbag’s words failed him.

And that was when _he_ came. Celebrimbor. The Elvish _git._

The Elvish Git had never liked seeing them speaking, or spending time in easy companionship together, much less kissing ( _that_ was the word!) Right from the beginning, he’d been unwilling to tolerate any sign of closeness, or developing camaraderie between them.

Ratbag supposed it was because he was an Orc. How the Elvish Git could possibly be jealous, if he was jealous, of Ratbag (who was, after all, an Orc) was beyond him, but there was never any accounting for snobby Elvish Gits or the corkscrews they had for brains.

***


	3. Zog's Memoirs: Genesis

*

_“Dimwit!”_

In response to the activation keyword, the Uruk revenant opened its eyes, Necromantic energies escaping from under its eyelids in wisps of glowing green fog.

“Sit down at the escritoire, and get ready to write.”

The revenant gave a brief moan by way of affirmative, and sat at the writing desk, picking up a quill on the second try, the feather looking absurdly delicate in its stubby fingers, and dipped the nib in the inkpot.

“Copy down everything I say. I wish to write my memoirs. NOT THAT! DON’T WRITE TH- ~~Oh, never mind, just cross that out.~~ No, wait, don’t waste ink with that either, just get a new piece of paper and start again…

 

~~~

It was obvious to Zog, from the moment he opened glowing yellow eyes (long before he was due to, while still shrouded in the caul of his vat) that he was destined for far greater things than the general fate of his species: created as mere mindless muscle, grown up in a vat as fast as possible from a slurry of gore, only to be ground back down just as fast to a mush of gore, beneath the merciless wheels of war.

He knew he was destined for greater things - destined, in fact, _to rule Mordor_ \- because he had been _told_ so, by the uniquely powerful magic that blazed in his soul and his alone. He knew this with just the same absolute certainty as he knew that unnaturally pre-seeded knowledge was filling the brains, and artificially accelerated growth was swelling the bodies, of all the other vat-bred Uruks as well as himself.

Until said growth was entirely finished, however, there was nothing much Zog could do for now, but think. So he glared up at the underside of the murky fluid’s surface, and plotted how best to secure his fortunes, as soon as he eluded the clumsy clutches of the moronic Vat-Keepers and Alchemists who presided over the production facility. After all, he knew already that avoiding the notice of those less sharp-eyed, less sharp-witted than he, would be (to coin a phrase) child’s play, for someone as magically gifted as he.

*

Once he’d slithered up out of the vat while the Vat-Keeper’s back was turned, appropriated a robe and as many of the most fascinating research notes and choicest supplies from the Alchemists’ laboratory as he could reasonably carry (plus a few spears just in case, since they seemed the ranged weapon that would need the least time wasted in learning to use) Zog simply sauntered out of the production facility, hooded head held high, looking down his nose in a lordly fashion at the guards, all of whom were Morgoth-knew how many years his elders, and all of whom could hardly hope to scrape together a single intellectual insight between them.

He kept his expression cool as he made good on his escape, but inwardly he was beside himself with glee, exultant. ‘It worked! I’m free!’

But of course one of the curses of a lightning-fast and profoundly cynical mind is that no moment of triumph goes long unexamined for flaws. ‘But what will I do now? Where will I go?’

Zog concentrated his attention inward, on that secret fire of magic that burned in his soul, listening, waiting, begging silently for some new sign.

The answer was swift. Zog was granted a vision: a system of caverns beneath the mountains of north Mordor, close to the eastern edge of the Black Gate. Along with the image came the knowledge that the caves had long been shunned by the Uruks, since they were an ancestral lair of graugs, that fed not just on lost or foolhardy Uruks, but on the caragors stalking the wilderness outside the caves, and the ghûls that teemed within.

Zog smiled thinly, baring small conical teeth. ‘Perfect,’ he thought, yellow eyes gleaming with satisfaction in sunken dark sockets, ‘A few well-placed baits will sort those beasts out,’ he patted some of the many flasks clinking at his belt, ‘and those I don’t dissect for ingredients, I’ll reanimate for sentries.’

*

With his hidden laboratory established and a suitable supply of ferocious guardians secured, Zog devoted his full attention for many years to conducting his own research - cutting-edge in fact as well as metaphor - into all the most obscure corners of Necromancy: the magical discipline where his extraordinary talents were focused. ‘As fate obviously decreed,’ he reasoned. ‘How else could I hope to defeat Sauron - who once hid at Dol Guldur under the Necromancer alias - unless I can outmatch him at his own speciality?’

Always his magic guided him toward the destiny it had foretold for him, usually by the subtlest hints: a wordless inclination toward this course of action over that, a brief vision, a piece of knowledge slipped silently into the back of his mind that he had no way of learning for himself. Only on the rarest of occasions would it give its guidance in actual language.

The first time that happened, was when Zog first gained reliable information (as opposed to fascinated rumours from mere acolytes) by interrogating a captured grunt, about a bizarre hybrid of Necromantic creatures: an Undead Man (yet he was not a Wight, for he had a living Man’s mind and personality!) sharing his flesh with an Elven Wraith (yet he was not Possessed, for he spoke with the Wraith as if they were two separate beings!) Impossible, on multiple counts!

Nevertheless, he existed!

The Wraith’s identity was unknown, but the Dominated grunt (and wasn’t it _fascinating_ that the hybrid had _that_ power: to wrest the loyalty of Sauron’s own soldiers from him!) had overheard another Uruk (a much more trusted minion obviously) call the Man ‘Ranger’ (by which Zog gathered he was one of those wilderness-types who’d made such nuisances of themselves in the local area until recently) and, once, also call him by the name ‘Talion’.

Then Zog heard it, from the darkest depths of his mind. A still, small voice:

_You will rule Mordor, after Talion is at peace._

*

Now that Zog knew that his prophesied fate was bound with Talion’s - that he had to kill Talion as well as Sauron before he could rule - he made that strange Necromantic chimera of Man and Elf his first priority: since Talion was surely less powerful than Sauron, it simply made more sense to kill him first.

Zog swiftly confirmed his suspicion that Talion was making the most logical use of his power of Domination and taking over Sauron’s forces: building himself an army of conquest, to use against Sauron’s army. Zog countered at once by enlisting more acolytes of his own and training them, with a view to raising Uruk revenants en masse.

'Two can build an army! But unfortunately Talion has quite the head start. Clearly I will need more power to defeat him, and reanimating Uruks, or even Ologs, will only get me so far. Time for a little more in-depth research…’ Zog gave the sort of smile that lurked at the bottom of the Moria-gate lake, and reached for a tome titled _‘Valaraukar, or Balrogs: Demons of the Ancient World’._

*

But Zog’s research into how to raise his Undead army’s ultimate weapon was interrupted mid-word one day, when he was sledgehammered by a sudden sense of private catastrophe. It felt like his whole future world had been knocked flying off its axis.

He _knew_ , with the same soul-deep, unquestionable certainty that he’d felt while still in his vat, that the glorious fate that had always been _his_ had somehow, all in an instant, been nullified, made impossible.

The familiar walls of his laboratory ceased to exist as he saw a vision of the Gorthaur statue, crashing to the ground. Normally he’d celebrate the destruction of a monument to his ultimate enemy Sauron, but now it was an all-too-obvious metaphor for the ruin of his own ruling destiny.

 _‘No!_ This is no mere metaphor! It’s another sign, and an urgent one! Whatever changed the course of my destiny, happened at the Gorthaur statue! I have to get there, and fast!’

*

But by the time Zog arrived at the Black Gate, the battle was over. He had the trifling satisfaction of laying eyes on his target, Talion, for the very first time in the flesh, but it was only from a long distance. Mordor’s most famous dead Man was already making a hasty retreat south on the Black Road: acting as rearguard and fighting off a pursuing patrol of scouts as he escorted another, a she-Man, it looked like. ‘Odd, if true: that Dominated Uruk never knew of any among Talion’s minions.’ Zog peered speculatively after the two distant figures, then shook his head and put them from his mind, for now.

The looming, sickening sense of _wrong_ hung over the Black Gate battlefield like the familiar smell of death, and Zog began to pick his way among the corpses: work equally familiar to even the most junior Necromancer, and indeed no onlooker would think to challenge him at such duties, and no lesser Necromancer would ever dare encroach on a battlefield claimed by a talent as supreme in their field as Zog the Eternal.

But for once, though Zog bent over each body, and stooped to turn them over and look at them, he never took a thing from any of them. Instead his gaze was abstracted, turned inward: he was searching with his magic more than his eyes, casting to and fro for that terrible, wrenching sense of _wrong_ , like a bloodhound trying to catch an elusive scent.

He paused over the corpse of the Hammer, reading the climax of the battle in the footprints, the blood sprays in the dirt, and the wounds on the body. ‘Well well, Talion, you’re quite the warrior, aren’t you? I suppose I should thank you for taking this one out of my way. If fortune continues to favour me, and I hide my preparations well enough, perhaps you and Sauron might finish your fight to the death before one of you even notices me! The sole survivor would be severely weakened by such a fight, while I would have had all that time to strengthen my army, with the dead from both of yours.’

Zog’s eyes, bright in dark sockets, flicked over the Hammer’s pallid, scarred face, already showing the first signs of bloat. ‘Ironic; one would think that such a Famous Personage would surely be the fulcrum of fate I’ve been looking for. But no; now you’re merely more materials! Just a bulk order of spoiled Manflesh,’ Zog smirked waspishly, ‘in an excessively fancy can.’ He was sorely tempted to take a trophy from so noteworthy a corpse, but refrained: knowing that the Black Hand, as a fellow Necromancer, would be there soon to claim the Hammer’s body for himself, and not wanting to make the Black Hand aware of his existence before he was ready to challenge Sauron’s lieutenant or Sauron himself for the Throne.

Zog continued to trace the course of the battle backwards, pacing back and forth across the battlefield, reconstructing the chain of events in his mind, realising with uneasy admiration that when Talion had confronted the Hammer, he’d also been mobbed by a dozen Uruks, and he’d still been in fit shape to walk away afterwards! ‘Talion came from the direction of the Gorthaur statue, and no doubt he was the one responsible for that lovely bit of artistic critique! Whereas the Hammer came from the opposite direction, and it seems his arrival was delayed beforehand by… hmmm, administering some rough justice, it appears. Yes, it’d take a weapon arm as strong as the Hammer’s, to make a body fly this far away from the scene!’

Zog’s relentless seeking jolted at last to a halt over one still form lying concealed behind some crates. It looked so much less worth all his painstaking searching than had the Hammer’s huge and ornately armoured carcass. Just an Orc, and a small and stringy one too: visibly so, even under all the bones-and-skulls armour that had obviously been designed to try and hide that scrawniness. But appearances didn’t matter, Zog knew: he himself was on the stringy side, and they said the Black Hand was shorter than either the Hammer or the Tower.

Magic was the only thing that truly mattered, and as Zog gazed down at the bony body lying sprawled in the dirt - its eyes wide in final panic, its skull cracked open at the right temple, baring its brain to the sky - his magic _knew,_ with the certainty innate to a true Necromancer, that the soul this body once housed had flown.

And it was _this_ one tiny loss that had torn his entire shining destiny to shreds.

Zog had arrived at the Black Gate battlefield too late.

 

 

…But then, for a true Necromancer, there was no such thing as ‘too late’.

*


	4. Zog's Memoirs: Masterpiece

*

For a Necromancer, raising the dead was all in a day’s work. 

What non-Necromancers rarely realised was that reanimation was in reality two spells, not one: first, an extremely rapid full-system healing spell that repaired the body just enough that it could contain life; and second, the true Necromantic spell, sealing within the body just enough raw spiritual energy to power it. 

Reanimation was, of course, the simplest and therefore commonest of Necromantic spells. Given any sufficiently entire battlefield body (beheadings and bisections excluded) any mere acolyte could reanimate: the resulting revenant would provide reliable backup in combat, but that was about the limit of its capabilities.

But as Zog stood looking down at this one very specific body at his feet, he _knew_ , with the same fateful inevitability that had brought him here, to the ruins of the Gorthaur statue - and far more importantly, to the ruins of his proud fate! - that such slapdash methods as a mere reanimation would in _no_ way suffice.

This wordless knowledge was growing clearer with every moment that he gazed down into the dead Orc’s haggard face, like a lens being turned slowly into sharper and sharper focus. If Zog merely made a revenant of this Orc it would solve nothing, because the loss that had been the destruction of Zog’s destiny was not merely the loss of this Orc’s life.

It was also the loss of his _soul_.

Zog swallowed as the enormity of what was this meant settled a layer of chill over his own soul.

To remedy this would require no lesser feat of him than the conquering of the last and greatest unsolved mystery of Necromancy.

Not just reanimating dead bodies with necromantic energy, that left mind and personality forever lost. 

Not just summoning dead souls back to Arda as disembodied Wraiths.

Healing this body, and then _reuniting it with its soul_. 

Restoring him to life, _exactly as if he had never been dead_.

_True Resurrection!_

‘If I achieve this… **_I_** will be the greatest Necromancer Arda has ever known! Not Sauron, not even Morgoth himself ever accomplished such a feat!’ A smile dawned on his angular features, ‘And my magic has never yet steered me wrong!’

…Yes, for an _ordinary_ Necromancer, _merely_ raising the dead was all in a day’s work.

But rewriting the course of fate itself, and discovering immortality of the soul in the flesh? _That_ would require Zog the Eternal!

Zog turned his smile, sharp with determination, on the sad little body lying in the dust before him. _“You,_ my boy,” he purred aloud, “will be my _masterpiece!”_

*

Zog knew that even the first step, the healing, would have to be exceptionally painstaking and thorough, more so than anything he’d ever attempted before. He’d have to ensure that the damage to the dead Orc’s brain was entirely reversed. At first, he worried that work of such subtlety might prove to be beyond even his skills; but here, ironically enough, the Hammer’s malice actually came to his aid!

The aura of the curse on the Hammer’s mace lingered on the deathblow it had inflicted, and although (through the magical Principles of Similarity and Contagion) curses of _normal_ strength _attracted_ relatively insignificant living pestilences such as Morgul flies, the influence of the Hammer’s cursed mace was so strong it completely _repulsed_ all flies and other battlefield contaminants from entering the wound! Fortunately, Zog’s own skill with curses was more than a match for this aura, mere remnant that it was without a will or a caster to direct it, and he managed to dispel it without incident.

Next, Zog summoned his patience and unfastened all the fiddly little straps holding together the leather-and-bone Warchief armour on the body, rather than following his usual habit and simply picking up the nearest scalpel and shredding his latest subject’s garb, since he knew that this time he’d need to re-use it later. ‘Pity the concept of a _helmet_ obviously never crossed the poor sod’s excuse for a mind!’ Zog’s thin lips twisted in a smirk as he stripped the body, then lifted it off the dissection table and carefully submerged it in his own - _extremely_ heavily-modified - version of a spawning vat.

Beneath the surface of the clear, greenish-tinted, very slightly gelatinous fluid that filled the vat - a very different mixture from the gory murk of a conventional Uruk birth - the long dark strands of the victim’s hair undulated slowly to and fro with a languid, dreamlike grace, swaying like seaweed, hiding from view the awful wound that had killed him. Lying like that, he looked almost peaceful, if you could ignore his eyes: still open, for Zog had not closed them. Never one to suffer from false sentimentality, Zog knew the fluid would heal the exposed corneas of any damage from dryness, light and dust.

Zog set up two low tables of concentration-promoting incense flanking a chaise-longue, and made himself comfortable, placing flasks of various restorative elixirs close to hand. This healing would require a truly marathon session of extremely delicate spellcasting that would require him to maintain utterly unbroken concentration throughout, and he knew of old the furthest limits of his own physical endurance.

Finally, he lit the incense, and to the sound of his acolytes’ chanting, closed his eyes and lost all awareness of his own body and the outer world, focusing his magical energies on the victim’s body, on ever smaller, unseeable, minute scales of damage…

*

Zog sat up with a lurch and a gasp, coughing and gagging on the slippery texture and herbal taste of vat fluid though his mouth was bone dry, shivering as violently as if _he_ had been submerged naked in cold slime all this time, instead of wrapped up warmly in his woollen robes, lying perfectly safe on a comfortable chaise-longue in his familiar laboratory, surrounded by doting acolytes.

Zog blinked, wiped his eyes, surprised on an instinctive level to find the lashes dry, rather than gummed up with greenish slime. ‘But this transposition of perspectives is only understandable,’ he reasoned, ‘I’ve spent so long focused so intensely on healing so much minuscule damage to the victim’s body. In fact, it’s a hopeful sign.’

He swung his legs over the side and rolled up to stand with the stiffness of long quiescence, walking over to the vat temporarily with the tottery gait of an ancient.

Lying in the bottom of the vat, the Orc looked just as he had before: the long dark curtain of his hair straggling back and forth idly in the fluid, veiling his mortal wound from view.

Zog slipped one hand carefully into the vat, reaching down to that undulating screen of hair, arresting its motion, holding it back from the right temple.

The crack in the Orc’s skull had closed, leaving only a deep red scar seaming his scalp to show where it had been!

‘The healing stage is almost totally complete!’ Zog beamed triumphantly down at the curving red scar.  But a moment later, his eyes narrowed in thought, his gaze drifting from the branching line of the scar to the lean strings of sinew on the lax limbs. ‘No. It _is_ complete! I’ll let you keep that scar, my boy; it’ll be a little extra gift from me. Scrawny lads like us, the world needs a nice visible reminder that we’re not to be trifled with! And I’m quite sure _you_ could only benefit from that same reminder, of all that you’ll have overcome. …In fact, I’ll even emphasise it a little: add some more hardware to match all those piercings you’re evidently so fond of.’

It was a simple matter to turn the Orc’s head so the scar was uppermost. In response to a curt order, an acolyte brought a jar of short-clawed meteor-steel staples, and one by one Zog pincered them out of the jar between spindly fingertips, positioned them across the scar - each one askew from the last by delicately-judged degrees - and sealed each in place with a brief burst of magical force, flaring eye-searing green beneath the fluid’s surface. 

‘There.’ Zog eyed the aesthetic effect with a sharp smile. ‘Suitably rough-and-ready looking. _That’s_ the sort of scar that says to all the big bully boys out there: “I’m so tough I’ve already walked away from worse damage than you’ll ever hand out, so don’t try me!” And the staples are small enough they won’t pierce bone, just in case anyone’s stupid enough to mistake scar tissue that’s actually healed thicker than the original, for a weak spot.’

Zog leaned back with a sigh of of mingled satisfaction and foreboding. The healing stage really was complete, and he’d stalled himself with this trifling bit of cosmetic surgery as long as possible. Oh, the body could remain in the vat indefinitely, without deterioration of any kind; Zog was satisfied that he had quite perfected the merely physical side of the Necromantic arts. The incredibly delicate restoration he’d just performed on this Orc’s brain was the pinnacle and proof of that perfection.

‘Now for the hard part.’

*

But no matter how deeply Zog delved into Necromantic lore, no matter how thoroughly he experimented, no matter how astutely he invented, on the enduring mystery of Resurrection he made no more progress than had all his fellow Necromancers before him.

Until, finally, in despair and at his wits’ end, Zog threw himself upon the very last resort, the one he had been dreading in the back of his mind all along. He humbled his fierce intellectual pride, sinking to his knees and focusing his attention inward on the secret fire of magic that blazed in the core of his soul, begging it for help: ‘How can I make this right? How can I reunite his soul with his body?’

Again, the answer was swift, and again it was one of the rare replies in words:

_Remind him why he wanted most to live._

*

When Necromancers spoke to the souls of the dead, such speech was almost invariably limited to the few commanding words of the spells used to summon and bind Wraiths. Zog had of course immediately ruled out such summonings as useless for his current purpose: they enslaved a dead soul to the Necromancer’s soul, a process completely incompatible with the natural bond of a soul with a living body.

No, now his speech would need to be entirely different: not the harsh bark of a slavemaster’s summons, not even an amicable conversation. He would have to _persuade_ , by whatever means necessary: plead, beg, …seduce?

But first, Zog knew, he had to discover whatever reasons this Orc had, to want to live. Luckily, all the work he’d done to restore those neural structures to their living state should make that relatively straightforward. He stripped off the gloves he’d been wearing and strolled over to the vat, dipping his hands in and circling the Orc’s head with his fingers spread wide, carefully positioning the pointed tips of all ten claws in very specific places around the Orc’s skull. He closed his eyes and frowned in fierce concentration, before sending the most painstakingly-judged pulses of magical energy - so minuscule they couldn’t even be seen - through this or that fingertip, in very precise patterns and timings, feeding _just_ enough energy into the neurons to glimpse occasional dim sepia images, raise momentary distant echoes of emotion, starting from the most recent past and unwinding backwards in a flickering thumbnail sketch of a life lived…

*

Zog opened his eyes and lifted his hands out of the vat, wiping greenish gel off them onto his robes in a completely uncharacteristic fit of messiness: but then, he had far more important things on his mind. “Acolytes! Get Ratbag, er, the Resurrection subject, out of the vat _now!_ I want his lungs cleared and aerated, I want him dried, clad - no armour - and warmed, and in the recovery bed: mattress, full linens and blankets.”

As acolytes burst into the room from all over the cave complex and exploded into a flurry of activity, Zog darted around, absorbed in his own preparations: setting up tall candle pillars and skulls carved with sigils at various points around the bed, and drawing other sigils in sweet oils and bitter bile on the stone wall at the bed’s head and the floor at its foot; another over his heart in his own blood; and finally a different sigil again, on Ratbag’s brow: drawn in the hot unfamiliar wetness that rose all at once to Zog’s eyes, when he deliberately dwelled on everything he had just learned, roaming the death-stilled corridors of Ratbag’s brain.

At last, all preparations were complete, and Zog ordered the acolytes out, and sealed the room against all disturbance, before entering the circle around the bed, where Ratbag - the name alone was useful information - now lay, looking for all the world as if he were merely asleep. Seating himself by the bed, taking one of Ratbag’s hands in both of his, Zog let his own head rest on the edge of the bed and performed the difficult feat of relaxing his body and concentrating his mind at the same time, loosening the bond between spirit and flesh and reaching out his awareness into the Wraith world.

At once everything around Zog lost all colour and much of its form, edges swirling as if partially composed of smoke. He stood up from the chair where his body still sat, leaning forward by the side of the bed, and was relieved to see the brilliantly shining cord that stretched from him back to his temporarily vacated flesh.

Reassured, Zog looked around. No-one else was in sight. Shrugging, he poked his head through the nearest wall. No-one was in the room beyond either, at least no-one more interesting than a gaggle of acolytes with their ears to the door. Zog drifted up to them and expended just enough effort to become mundanely audible, then growled “Get back to work, you layabouts!”, smirking to himself when they scattered most gratifyingly. Apparently there really was something about being incorporeal that added that extra ectoplasmic oomph to a few disapproving words!

Zog searched all over his cavern complex, but there was no other disembodied presence. So much for his hope that Ratbag’s spirit might have chosen to haunt the vicinity of his body.

For lack of any better idea, Zog returned to said body. ‘If this is to have any chance of success, well, I’ll just have to call him back here from wherever he’s gone.’

Suiting deed to thought, Zog filled incorporeal lungs and called, “Ratbag?”

Nothing.

“RATBAG!” ‘Damn you, where _are_ you?’ Worry seized Zog, the emotion more intense in his disembodied state.

Still nothing.

‘You little sod! Get your ectoplasmic arse back here or I’ll _never_ rule Mordor!’ Rising agitation abruptly got the better of him, and Zog yelled so loudly he would’ve strained his voice, if he’d actually been using his vocal cords, “RAATBAAG!”

To coin a phrase… dead silence.

‘Ugh. What’s _wrong_ with me?’ Zog closed his eyes and pinched their inner corners in an old habit of his to stave off a migraine, though of course his brain was several feet away right now. ‘I’m falling into _bad_ old habits! I can’t just go ordering him around! This isn’t a summoning, I’m not trying to bind a Wraith, I’m trying to find a soul to Resurrect!’

He drifted back to stand by the bed, looking down at the body lying there as still as ever, before resuming in quieter tones, “This isn’t about me. I forgot that back there, and I shouldn’t have.” He sighed. “Let’s start again. Ratbag?” He reached out, brushed a few stray strands of hair back from a pointed eartip. “I’m sorry I yelled, but I did it because I have to get your attention. I have a _very_ important message for you, and I _swear_ every word is true, and it’s a message I know you’ll truly want to hear…” he leaned closer, breathing the next words softly into Ratbag’s ear, “…because it’s about Talion. You _need_ to know about Talion. Talion misses you, very badly. Talion wants you back alive, very much. Do you want to know why? Very well, I’ll tell you why. Talion misses you, Talion wants you back alive, because _Talion loves you!”_

 _There!_ Was that movement he saw out of the farthest corner of his eye? An ache of hope crept sidelong into Zog’s heart, as distant as if he were sensing it from somewhere - or someone - beyond himself: faltering, tentative, vague and faint as the tiniest candle flame flickering on the very verge of extinction. He didn’t dare move or react at all, he didn’t even dare move his eyes to look properly: the moment was too fragile, too precious, to be jeopardised by anything he did.

Zog swallowed around sudden poignant tightness and continued to whisper the truth he _knew_ , as surely as he knew anything his fate had ever told him, “Talion loves you, more than anyone alive! Talion. Loves. You! Talion. Wants. You! Come back to Talion! Come back for Talion! Come back, Ratbag! Come back! Come!”

*

Zog snapped back to the living world, greeted by a raw, choking gasp that was not his own: a truly momentous sound that instantly engraved itself indelibly in his memory as a heady paean of triumph, the polar opposite of a death-rattle! He let go of Ratbag’s hand and slipped both hands behind the Orc’s narrow back, helping him to sit up in bed and supporting his body as he was wracked by more spasms of coughing, ridding his lungs of the last traces of the vat’s healing fluid.

“Breathe, Ratbag,” he said softly, “slowly, slow and deep. Here, follow me…” he took one of Ratbag’s hands and placed it on his own chest, as thin and bony as Ratbag’s own, and took long, slow breaths, and haltingly Ratbag tried to match his pace, between spasms that slowly eased.

In response to the sounds of the coughing fit, acolytes started banging on the doors; now Zog waved a hand distractedly, dropping the locking spells, and the acolytes poured in, gaping in open astonishment from Ratbag to Zog. But Zog spared them not a glance, his attention fixed entirely on his patient.

“There now,” Zog murmured as he rested a steadying hand on Ratbag’s shoulder, “how do you feel, my boy? What do you remember?”

“Urgh,” Ratbag winced, one hand going up to his right temple, blinking in surprise as his fingertips found and started to trace the line of staples. Zog snapped his fingers, conjuring a mirror surface out of thin air; Ratbag unselfconsciously reached out at once to the mirror, tilting it, turning his head to eye the jagged bits of dark metal emphasising the branched scar, and giving a little “hmm!” that sounded more appreciative than anything else.

Zog grinned inwardly at that positive reaction, though he kept his outward expression blandly interested.

“Um, headachy?” Ratbag answered at last, finally surfacing from contemplating the scar and remembering the questions. “And I, uhh,” he dropped the mirror and it dissolved, his fingertips going to the centre of his brow instead, massaging in small circles as he closed his eyes, “I don’t remember a _single sodding thing_ after the Hammer knocked me out! Absolutely _nothing!_ I’m trying to make excuses to the Hammer, but that _bastard’s_ just sneering at me, ‘Fortunately, you are still alive!’, then WHAM, then I wake up here!” He blinked up at Zog, squinting a little as he frowned. “Sooo, I guess _you_ must’ve picked me up afterwards and stapled my noggin together, yeah?” He gave a quick, half-ingratiating, half-panicky little flash of a grin, “Thanks a lot for that! So, er, who _do_ I have to thank for that, sir, ah...?” he added awkwardly, sticking out his hand in an offer of a friendly handshake, with a little shamefaced half-shrug added in.

Zog graciously accepted the handshake, his lordly manner as palpable as his black hooded cloak. “Zog the Eternal, Necromancer - and, needless to say, Healer -” he added with a smirk and a tilt of his head, “...and no particular friend to the Hammer, may he rest in pieces.” 

This last, of course, piqued Ratbag’s interest immediately, as Zog knew it would. His whole face lit up, green-gold eyes gleaming catlike in the lab’s gloom. “The Hammer’s _dead?_ Splendid! Who did it? Was it …the Gravewalker?”

“Indeed it was,” Zog purred, smiling at the tiny hesitation as Ratbag chose another name than the damningly over-familiar ‘Talion’. “I’m told he put up a wonderful fight. It’s just a shame his timing wasn’t as good as his combat skills, or no doubt you wouldn’t have that new scar, or that new story of survival against all odds to go along with it!”

But Ratbag shrugged off his own survival as unimportant, at least for now. “D’you know where he went afterwards?” he asked, all bright-eyed eagerness, “The Gravewalker I mean?”

‘As if there could be any doubt who you mean,’ Zog thought with a sudden inward surge of wry fondness for Ratbag, the strength of which caught him by surprise, ‘ahh, young love.’ Aloud, though, he only said, “I hear he had to beat a hasty retreat south along the Black Road. Where he went after that,” Zog concluded quite honestly, “I’ve no idea. …As for where _you_ should go right now,” he added, “In my much-lesser-known professional capacity as Healer, I advise you to go straight back to sleep.”

“What?” Ratbag croaked indignantly. “But I feel like I’ve been asleep for bloody ages!”

Zog extricated his hand from Ratbag’s and stood. “Which doesn’t mean that a little more sleep won’t do you good,” he murmured soothingly, even as he silently cast a mild sleeping charm: Ratbag’s eyelids grew swiftly heavier, falling further over his eyes until he was snoring softly by the time the sentence was over. Zog pulled the blanket higher over Ratbag’s chest, before turning away from his bed.

“I want everything done to make our guest here as comfortable as possible,” he ordered his acolytes. “Prepare a fresh decoction of mallos and alfirin blossoms: that will cure that throat and chest irritation. He’s very weak, and has a great deal of recuperation still ahead of him.” 

Zog’s old regal bearing was back in full force, and his hooded head was held high in pure triumph, because from the moment of his awakening - or more accurately, from the moment of Ratbag’s Resurrection - he _knew_ that his duly prophesied destiny as future ruler of Mordor was right back on track, exactly where it had always belonged!

‘I’ve _done_ it!’ Zog thought as he swept from the room, heart pounding, almost dizzy with pure elation, ‘ ** _I_** am the first Necromancer in the history of Arda to perform a successful Resurrection! I have unlocked the secret of immortality in the flesh! I am _truly_ Zog the Eternal!’

*

Zog’s researches had kept him within his cavern complex for so very long - literally months without a single break - that on the heels of his incredible triumph he was struck by a sudden restlessness, both physical and mental, and an intense desire to get away from the overly-familiar confines of his laboratories. Accordingly, he summoned one of his dire caragor sentries, and a suitably large escort of acolytes and revenants also all on caragor mounts, and headed out into the wilderness at random, in a rare fit of unplanned activity, simply joyriding for the pure fun of feeling the open air in his face and the bunch and flex of the caragor’s springy body carrying him with its effortless, energetic bounds.

For once, Zog’s mind - usually brimful to bursting with plots and plans - was calm and quiet and still, which perhaps explains why, when his party crossed the path of an unusually large and burly Olog travelling alone, he wasn’t too inclined to react with either shock or resentment when suddenly he _knew_ this particular Olog would be in some way important to his Future. Zog simply halted his party, and waited a little, to see if he would soon know more.

Sure enough, as the Olog passed them on the road and his lumpen silhouette began to dwindle into the distance, Zog was seized by the wordless pang of anxiety that spurred a captor not to let a vital prisoner escape. ‘Well then,’ he shrugged mentally, ‘mine not to reason why,’ and with a single, silent mental command sent his entire escort - revenants, caragors, acolytes and all - pouncing utterly without warning on the retreating back of the solitary Olog.

What Zog had thought would be a quickly finished ambush capture turned out instead to be a surprisingly hard-fought battle, ending only after what turned out to be not merely some traveller but a truly terrifying Olog warrior, sustained serious wounds from a simultaneous attack by all his Undead caragors at once.

Despite his wounds, and the blood loss that had weakened him enough for them to subdue him, Zog had still needed to summon heavy shackles to secure the Olog.

Staring at the chained Olog, who had been steadily and inventively swearing at him in Black Speech all the while, Zog mused, ‘At least with a soldier such as him in my army, my victory on the battlefield against Sauron or Talion - whichever of them prevails - seems that little bit more assured.’

When Zog’s magic chose that exact moment to shatter his assumption with another of its rare pieces of verbal guidance…

_Your Orc and your Olog, blood-brothers must be._

…Zog simply sighed resignedly. He saw _no_ possible way at the moment to make this huge and hostile Olog (battle-scarred, blood-drenched and berserker-prone that he was) even _befriend_ poor Ratbag (a skinny little specimen at the best of times, and by no means recovered from his physical ordeal right now) much less take him to heart so much that they would become _blood-brothers_ , that rarest and closest of all Uruk-hai or Olog-hai bonds. But Zog knew better by now than to argue with his fate: he just had to wrestle down the voluble objections of his logical mind - for the umpteenth time! - and wait for matters to become clearer.

As they did. The road the party was on was more frequented than it had seemed: first the warrior-Olog, now the jingle of harness and the groan of weighted wood and the rumble of many voices said that a sizeable group was drawing near. And soon rounding a bend came a train of several large wagons holding heavily built iron cages of varying sizes, one even big and strong enough to hold a graug, if it was sitting crouched low. That cage was empty, but the others were all full, mostly of caragors and dire caragors, though several held Snaga-Orcs: slaves branded with the Eye on their foreheads, clad only in loincloths, their skins pallid from the cold and heavily wealed with whip marks and poorly healed bites.

A caravan of slavers, on their way to one or another of Mordor’s multitude of fighting pits: that much was patently obvious to Zog. Then the lead Uruk, a broad-shouldered Defender with a protruding gold tooth, obviously Marauder Tribe from the ostentatious trim on his armour, leaned on his shield and hailed him. “Ho, sir Necromancer! I see you’ve got yourself a fighter there! Bit knocked about, mind you,” he added in assessing tones, “Needs patching up, and on an Olog that’s a lotta work. Tell you what, I’ll take him off your hands, as is, lock stock’n’shackles, for fifty Mirian. Cash in hand, and you won’t find a fairer dealer than Ashgarn Gold-Fang!” He jingled a pouch at his belt and gave Zog a wide, raffish grin. “Whaddaya say?”

All at once, inspiration struck Zog. “Where are you going?” he inquired coolly.

The slaver shrugged, clearly seeing no particular reason why he shouldn’t answer. “South, hitting the usual fight pits,” he replied, buffing his claws idly on his sleeve as he spoke, “Warm-ups at Dúrthang, first big fights at Ghâshgôr, side trip to Thaurband to pick up more slaves if we need ‘em, then the real big time at Sharkhburz.” It was the slaver’s turn to fix Zog with a sudden, searching stare, “Why do you wanna know?”

It was Zog’s turn to shrug. “Just curious. …I’ll make you a counter-offer,” he added in confiding tones. “That fighter? If I sell him to you now, he’ll be dead inside of a day. He’ll need specialist care - _my_ care - for _weeks_ if he’s to ever make it back to full fighting form. But once he _is_ , put him in a pit with _any_ fighter, and he’ll _slaughter_ them. Meanwhile, leave him in that big cage to heal up, so people can see between the bars. Let everyone see him as you travel to Núrnen, let the news spread far and wide, let the betting build up against him, and _then_ you can make an absolute _fortune_ in the Sharkhburz pits!” As Zog spoke, he threaded his words with persuasive charm, subtle as smoke, insidious as incense, and the big Defender’s gilt-helmeted head nodded slowly as he listened. Zog raised his voice in the end so that the others in the train heard him more clearly, “…And we’ll split the proceeds by halves!” He smiled sharklike at Ashgarn, “What do you say?”

Ashgarn returned the smile and spat on his palm, holding it out. Zog spat on his and they shook, sealing the deal. 

“Open the graug cage!” Ashgarn called to the other Uruks in his train, before turning to Zog. “Your lot gonna load the Olog in?”

“Yes, and I’ll tell them to send my healing supplies after us.”

“Your crew are your worry,” Ashgarn frowned. “If you want any of ‘em to come with us, their expenses are coming outta your pocket.”

Zog nodded untroubled agreement. “Of course. It’s not as though Undead require feeding, in any event. My acolytes will load my supplies onto Undead caragors. They’ll catch up to this caravan in no time. As you know, caragors can run quite fast, and Undead ones don’t need to stop for any reason.”

“Huh,” Ashgarn shrugged, “Fair enough. Well, if you’re thinking about bringing along any Undead Uruks, you’ll want to keep ‘em well out of the way of Barfa and Hork there,” he nodded toward two paunchy Uruks near the tail of the caravan, both in the gore-drenched garb and carrying the cleavers that indicated the Slaughter Tribe. “They’re cannibals. Handy to have around, and not just as pit fighters: I rent ‘em out to Pit-bosses for post-match clean-ups too, but the buggers are always peckish!”

“Thank you for letting me know,” Zog replied. “While we’re sharing information, one of the things I’ll be sending for will be a live follower. Well…” Zog scrunched his nose and waggled one hand in midair in a noncommittal gesture, “not so much a ‘follower’ as another convalescing prisoner of mine, also in need of my constant supervision and medical treatment. Don’t _worry_ ,” he raised his voice as a scowling Ashgarn drew breath, no doubt to protest, “he’s tiny, hardly bigger than a ghûl, and of course I’ll cover his costs out of my own pocket. _And_ he can easily be kept in the same cage as the fighter. All the better for _me_ to keep a watchful eye on them both!”

Ashgarn subsided with a growl and walked away, leaving Zog to supervise the successful imprisonment of the warrior-Olog - still feisty, despite his wounds - in the graug cage.

That necessary duty done, Zog gave detailed, careful orders to his acolytes, and sent them back to his caverns.

After their rest while negotiations and loading had been going on, the caravan restarted with a clink of harness and a groan of wood as the draught-Ologs heaved and grumbled.

Zog sat on the edge of the wagon that carried the graug cage, long legs dangling aimlessly from the back: setting off all at once, on an entirely new venture, as if on a whim.

Oh, but it was _no_ mere whim that drove him: Zog was many things, but whimsical had never been one of them.

How better to persuade such an ill-assorted duo as scrawny little Ratbag and this surly, violent Olog to become friends, than to force them into each other’s company: the Olog in a vulnerable condition, with only a fraction of his strength; both in shared, deadly peril, for an extended period (and where in Mordor is further from the Black Gate, than the famous Sharkhburz fighting pits)?

How better to prompt the Olog into feeling a bond of blood-brotherly obligation toward Ratbag, than to owe his very life to Ratbag? And how else could tiny Ratbag possibly save this huge Olog’s life, but by slipping his slender arms between the broad bars of this unbreakable cage, and using his dexterous hands to pick this strong but clumsy lock?

Yes, Zog could see the near future unrolling before his mind’s eye as neatly as if it had all been painted on a scroll. The two unlikely cage-mates, eyeing each other distrustfully; Ratbag squeezed into one corner, terrified at first; the Olog too wounded to move, a wary snarl from the Olog driving Ratbag back into his corner, the snarl subsiding for lack of strength to keep it up (Zog would make sure of that); then Ratbag’s essential spirit returning, for Zog had seen that too.

Ratbag was weedy, yes: weeds could be trodden on and cut down as much as you liked, but they’d keep coming back.

Ratbag was reedy, true: reeds would bow low before the wind, would bend double, would look positively broken, but as soon as the wind was gone, they’d stand up again.

So when the Olog subsided, Ratbag would perk up, Zog knew. Ratbag would sidle out of his corner. Ratbag would start to talk. Then Ratbag would chatter, and chivvy, and generally do his damnedest to rally his cage-mate’s spirits too.

And Ratbag would do all this, for no particular reason, other than because he was there, and his cage-mate was there; and for one reason above and beyond all other reasons.

Because Ratbag was _a good soul._

This, Zog _knew._

He had felt that essential goodness - which would in life be buried deep beneath living experiences, living pains and grudges and griefs and cynicisms - when he had called out to Ratbag’s soul, when he had been in its presence, in that last moment before they both awakened; though some instinctive caution had kept the eyes of his own soul turned aside, perhaps out of respect, perhaps out of fear for the consequences to his own stained soul, if he had dared to look.

Because of Zog’s plan, Ratbag and the Olog would become blood-brothers.

This too, Zog _knew._

~~~

 

“Stop copying down everything I say.”

The revenant moaned acknowledgement and set down the quill.

Zog had whiled away his time as he spoke, alternating between various leisurely activities - pacing to and fro in the lab, flipping through his grimoires, polishing his glassware, sharpening his scalpels, tinkering with his apparatus, reclining idly on his chaise-longue -  all the while sipping dilute mallos and alfirin tisane, to prevent any soreness of the throat from so long spent talking.

Now he strolled over to the escritoire, and with an elegant sweep of his arm scooped the topmost sheet off the tall stack of paper that had built up at the revenant’s elbow, intending to scan the fruit of today’s labours: the latest page of his dictated memoirs.

The page was _blank!_

Zog’s spidery fingers tightened; the page shook ever so slightly in midair, then crumpled at the edge where he was holding it, just a bit: the crackle of paper was loud in the lab’s utter silence.

Zog tore his disbelieving gaze from the sheet in his hand and glared down at the stack of paper on the escritoire.

The next-topmost sheet was _also_ blank.

Zog replaced the sheet in his hand atop the stack, then, moving with the exquisite care with which one handles an explosive potion, he extended his spindly arm and plucked the inkpot off the desktop, holding the heavy glass bottle between his eye and the nearest light, like a jeweller’s loupe.

 _“Empty_ as your blasted _head!”_ Zog delivered the verdict in tones of deepest disgust: though whether he was addressing the revenant or himself was impossible to say.

The revenant stared at him with vacant eyes, alight with only Zog’s own magical energy, looking back at him.

_“Dimwit!”_

In response to this repetition of the activate-deactivate keyword, the revenant shut down.

*


	5. He Ain't Heavy

*

The road dust didn’t last forever. Nothing ever did: Ratbag knew that now, no matter how desperately he might’ve wanted otherwise. Ratbag supposed he should be thankful for the ebbing of Gorgoroth’s horrendous heat that had drenched his skin in sweat and parched his throat; the fading of its choking smog that had made his sensitive eyes water - the smog, it was always just the smog - but Ratbag had already lost the only reason he’d ever found to feel truly thankful about anything.

Now, the black ash fields and lava plains had long since given way to bare gray rocks, the taller boulders’ jagged edges hissing with ceaseless winds, their darkest crevices sheltering years’ worth of dirty grey ice. Now, the road was slanting upwards, ever upwards, more and more sharply with every passing day, broken only by sudden treacherous slopes where the unfamiliar scree skidded under Ratbag’s feet.

More than once during these climbs he was saved at the last moment from a swift drop onto certain death: a flailing arm or leg would be seized in one enormous grey fist, and he’d be hauled back to safety, dangling ignominiously in midair as if he weighed no more than a caragor kit. He answered these miraculous saves with no more than a nod, a grunt, and one of the momentary, pained fang-flashes that were his current best approximations of smiles.

After their firecracker fusillade of words had finally fizzled out that memorable night, it had been all too easy for Ratbag to relapse into that dull, detached silence; too simple to slip back into the step-by-step subsistence, where the beat of the road under his feet, the deeper thud of the heavier tread leading him on, meant he didn’t have to talk. Didn’t have to think. Or remember. Or _feel._

So what if it meant that he didn’t pay quite enough attention, when the road narrowed and grew slippery underfoot, as they climbed higher and higher into the treacherous Seregost mountain passes? So what if it meant that the Olog had to reach out and snatch him back again and again when he stumbled, unheeding, toward certain death?

After all, he’d already saved Az-Harto’s life. Twice. First.

Or at least, he’d _arranged_ to have it saved, that second time. Lifting a finger now, or a hand, wasn’t too much to ask, was it? Besides, it wasn’t as though a Coward’s life was worth much anyway.

*

Az-Harto may have been an Olog of few words, but that had never meant he’d been an Olog of few thoughts. Right now, he thought that when Ratbag had cried that the Gravewalker had ‘broken him’, he had by no means been protesting merely about that worthless cur Brûz.

Az-Harto, still effortlessly holding Ratbag dangling at one arm’s full stretch after his latest rescue, snorted eloquent disgust aloud - not at Ratbag, _no!_ At _Brûz_ , at whatever the Gravewalker had _done_ to him, at what _that_ had done to Ratbag - and then, rather than setting Ratbag down on his feet again, instead he lifted his arm high and set Ratbag down on his left shoulder, just as he always used to sit, when together they had pretended to be the legendary Etten, the Overlord of Núrnen.

Then he fired a narrow-eyed glare up at Ratbag, and grumbled, “Stay. The pass is hidden, the ground icy. Only I know the way.” It was only partially true. If Ratbag had actually been paying attention, he would’ve been fine to walk it on his own. If he’d actually cared if he lived or died.

When Ratbag simply sighed and leaned sideways into his head, boneless as if all the fight had bled out of him, Az-Harto felt a hidden rush of relief at the knowledge that he’d won; Ratbag was now as safe as he could manage.

He lengthened stride, energy suddenly filling his mighty limbs with strength for the road yet ahead, his heart beating with eagerness for the home he’d been gone from too long. 

He hoped that his unlikely saviour might heal enough to one day be able to feel again some similar joy.

*

Sitting way up here - shielded by the Olog’s short fur wrap and the side of his head from the loudest howls of the wind and the bitterest bite of the cold, rocked to and fro with every slow stride, relieved of any need to watch his step - it was easier than ever for Ratbag to retreat into the dull haze inside his head and just let the world roll by without him.

As the leagues passed and the night deepened, Ratbag sagged gradually rightwards, resting his scarred temple on the bushy tuft on the top of Az-Harto's head, letting the Olog take more and more of his weight, as the slow, steady sway of his whole body tipped him further and further toward sleep.

When Ratbag slipped down a bit and started to snore into his ear, Az-Harto merely huffed sardonic amusement, slid one huge hand up to fasten the fur more firmly around his passenger’s body, and strode on into the night.

Safe, secure, and warm for the first time in what felt like far too long, Ratbag’s dreaming mind slipped away from the present, diving deep into memories of the past: memories of another travelling companion he had never stopped longing for, with every beat of his sore and solitary heart…

***


	6. Gory Day, Glory Night

***

Usually, Talion either succeeded in his battles with the Uruk Warchiefs… or he didn’t. As Ratbag had soon come to recognise, there were rarely half-measures, when Talion was concerned. In the case of an outright defeat, through some form of Dark magic, or Wraith magic, or perhaps another process entirely, the Ranger’s mortal remains would in some way regenerate - given a sufficient passage of time. The first instance of it happening had chilled Ratbag to the bone; but more frightening to him, if anything, was the ease with which he had come to accept his companion’s apparently immortal status, because each time he… _came back,_ he wasn’t altered, or eldritch, or even the slightest bit different. He was simply - himself, Talion, and every bit as mundanely, wonderfully, the same as he’d always been.

It was rare for the Ranger to encounter an opponent with whom he was more or less evenly matched, but it did happen. Without warning one morning, not long after they’d begun travelling together, he’d departed the location where he and Ratbag had been bivouacking in one of his mad blue flashes. It wasn’t uncommon for Talion to do this: Celebrimbor quite often peremptorily ‘summoned’ him, on the basis of having gathered this piece of fresh information or that, and then away Talion would rush, dropping everything at his behest, obediently dashing off to do his bidding.

‘His Master’s bidding, more like,’ Ratbag thought sourly, for it had by no means escaped his notice that Celebrimbor was in the habit of treating Talion not so much as an esteemed brother-in-arms, as a general dogsbody at best, and at worst, a somewhat slow-witted underling. _Talion,_ who was not only the best of men, but who was (from Ratbag’s admittedly biased viewpoint) the very best of everything! Yet another reason, as if any were needed, for him to view the Elf with distrust and outright loathing.

So, after seeing to the remains of their camp, Ratbag had set off after him. The Ranger’s destination had apparently been an Uruk encampment, a league or so distant, that had been occupied by a hunting-patrol; smaller than average, with maybe only a half-dozen or so of them. Even by Mordain standards it was a grisly scene the Ranger had left behind him: dead Orc and Uruk bodies littered the site, the corpses of Defenders and Hunters and Archers already beginning to bloat in the humid summer heat, and all covered with a noisome, moving blanket of Morgul-flies, come to feast on the pooling body-fluids and spilled blood. But there was little enough love lost between other Orcs and Ratbag; and as he picked his way through the remains of the group, stirring slow, blood-glutted clouds of the flies in his wake, he experienced only a vague sense of curious distraction.

This one, the Ranger had snuck up on and shanked; the handprint burn on that one’s face showed he’d been turned in haste, most likely to get information, and the others had killed him. They’d been on the perimeter. The Captain of the group, and his bodyguards, were lying slumped where they’d fallen, further in. None had surrendered quietly. Undoubtedly, these fighters had taken the worst of it.

There were gouges in the Captain’s armour: lacerating sword-cuts all over the big Uruk’s body. He was missing a fresh slice of flesh from his cheekbone, and most of his right ear, but by no means was all of the blood that had soaked into the ground around him of solely Orcish origin.

The colour, as well as the scent was different; bright red, and sweet, as opposed to an acrid near-black, and it was clear that Talion had not escaped his encounter with the Captain unharmed. With panicky haste Ratbag began searching the rest of the Orcs’ encampment, but of the Ranger he could find no sign.

It was well past noon by the time Ratbag caught up with him. Not that he had been difficult to find: the trail of blood he’d left made tracking easy, but with Celebrimbor’s assistance the Ranger could move with preternatural swiftness when the need was upon him, and so by the time Ratbag reached him, he had already left the Orcish hunting camp far behind.

He had run far, and fast, roughly following the same direction as a scouting trail that wended its way past the hunting camp and along the edge of heather-covered bluff. Where the land levelled out into a flat and desolate piece of tall-grass prairie was where Ratbag found him.

Talion was lying, face down, a short way off from the main trail, barely concealed in a wide stand of dry, hay-coloured grass. He had grave injuries about the head, and both his hands were pressed, hard, against the side of his body, where a slashing wound would otherwise have laid his belly open wide. He roused for a moment, shaking his head frantically, when Ratbag - his gorge rising at the sight of the glistening, pale grey loops of intestine he had glimpsed between Talion’s fingers - gently tried to move his hands aside. For a moment the Ranger stared at him, eyes glazed with pain and unseeing, before he subsided, head down again on the ground. Ratbag sat back on his haunches, flummoxed. How on earth had he managed to run here, in that state? And, more importantly, why was he lying there undefended, and all alone? Where the _shrakh_ was the Elf when, for once, Talion had need of him?

The Elvish prick was keeping his distance, that’s what Celebrimbor was doing.

“Orc!” Ratbag had only been there for a few minutes when he heard the Elf-lord call to him. It was difficult to make much out of him in the bright sunlight, but with uncharacteristic reticence the Wraith was hanging back on the main trail that Ratbag had been following, and seemed unwilling to come much closer. “Leave that, Orc,” he tutted, imperiously, “I want a word with you.”

 _Now_ he wanted a word with Ratbag! After more than two solid weeks of him pretending that he couldn’t see Ratbag or hear Ratbag, or more like him acting as if Ratbag didn’t even exist!

“It concerns Talion,” the Wraith eventually conceded, when Ratbag, ignoring him, refused to budge. “If you’re to be of any use helping him you’ll need to come _now._ It’s urgent.”

“Help the Ranger how?” Ratbag stood up and approached him cautiously, all the while regarding Celebrimbor with a wary eye.

“Hurry him on.” Celebrimbor made a vague gesture in the direction of the dying Man. Then he added, in clipped tones and a voice so urgent it was as if the very words were forcing their way out of him: “We’re wasting _time.”_

Ratbag just stared. “You what?”

The Elf, for once, was conciliatory. “You’d be doing him a kindness in the scheme of things,” he went on smoothly. “You could look at it like that. Just consider that you’d be… helping him on his way.”

It took Ratbag a moment to grasp what the Elf was talking about, and when he did he was appalled. “You’re wanting Ratbag to _kill_ the Ranger?”

“Temporarily! It would… accelerate the process, speeding it up and allowing us to side-step all of this -” Celebrimbor broke off, his brow furrowing with impatience and distaste, “- histrionics and _mess_. Him lying there, dying by inches all over the place. Rest assured he’ll be as good as new in no time. And it’s not as if _I_ can do it.”

“And Ratbag bets you would if you could, wouldn’t you?” Ratbag snarled back at him, outraged. He scurried back to Talion’s side and dropped into a crouch, low down over the Ranger’s prone form. As if _that_ could protect him from Celebrimbor’s insidious influence. Ratbag spat his next words at him: “Piss off, _Elf!”_

“We both know he’d thank you for it, if he could.”

Ratbag raised his hackles at him and narrowed his eyes. “Ratbag knows he’s only a poor, stupid Uruk. But you’ll excuse him not wanting to take your word for it, I’m sure.”

Ratbag could see Celebrimbor slowly registering that he, Ratbag, would not be budged. Of course he wouldn’t, not when it came to the Ranger! Never about _this!_ And so with a roll of his eyes, and in exactly the manner of a person who had far better things to do with his time, the Elf-Wraith flickered out of sight leaving Ratbag with Talion again, alone.

The Orc waited with him all through the heat of day. There wasn’t a breath of wind, or a puff of breeze to stir the long grass-stalks where Talion lay hidden; nothing but the shrill sounds of Cliff-cicadas - huge, ghastly, biting insects that thrived in Mordor’s wastes - filling the stifling, stagnant air. Ratbag waited with his heart in his mouth, terrified. An Uruk patrol might stumble upon them at any moment, or they could be caught by an Orc scouting-party, as he was only too acutely aware. But Ratbag’s luck, such as he had luck, held and neither of those things happened.

That didn’t mean they weren’t disturbed. At one point Ratbag went to fetch water. He risked it because he could smell and hear a stream nearby, at no more than a furlong or two’s distance, but when he got to the place he found that it was dried to a silty trickle, and by the time he returned there were Morgul bats circling, swooping low over Talion, biting and snapping their hideous jaws at him.

Making an almighty ruckus, Ratbag drove them off, jumping and swatting; chucking dried-grass tussocks and clods of hard-baked earth and anything else he could find and grab at them. It proved just enough to chase away the swarm, but as he sank down again beside the Ranger, legs trembling with delayed reaction, the realisation came to Ratbag that he was sitting there with _nothing._ He had no bandages or cleaning cloths, much less medicine: not even a sip of grog to help numb Talion’s pain. Probably for the best then, he thought miserably, that the Ranger was lying there more or less insensible. Ratbag knew how quickly his Wraith-possessed body could heal itself, but the damage he’d recently sustained was far greater than usual and, as Celebrimbor had said, the process did take _time._ There was little enough that Ratbag could do for him.

‘Perhaps the Elf was right after all,’ he thought; the kindest way might well have been a quick death, followed by painless resurrection. He was alone and frightened, sweltering in unbearable heat and thinking these gloomy, self-doubting thoughts…

And then a caragor came upon them.

It was a smallish, undersized thing. One of this season’s kits. Not even a yearling and barely half-grown as yet - not long off from having left its dam, if Ratbag was any judge of things.

At first it kept some space between them, circling from afar with its ears flat. If it could smell the blood that Talion had lost - and there was no reason why it shouldn’t, because the ground, and the grass and the air - the entire area around Talion was saturated with the heady reek of it; if it could smell the amount of blood that was soaked into the ground around him it must have reckoned its prey to be dead, or well on the way to being dead already. For that reason the beast didn’t bother to keep hidden. Its demeanour was not overtly anxious, or aggressive. It was watchful, but quite unperturbed as it trotted back and forth, leisurely assessing them.

‘Make yourself look bigger.’ Ratbag ran a few short steps out of cover and towards the caragor, flapping his arms and yelling. “Get out of here!” he shouted. _“Garn!”_ It was enough to make the beast turn and lope a short distance away, but its retreat didn’t take it nearly far enough.

‘If you think one of them’s going to go for you, you gotta make yourself look big!’ A Caragor-Wrangler with whom Ratbag had enjoyed a brief kind of …transactional dalliance… had shared that with Ratbag once, during a rare moment of post-coital afterglow before, predictably enough, the Caragor-Wrangler chased him away and got bored with him. The Wrangler had liked to feed Ratbag scraps, but never too many of them: tid-bits and off-cuts filched from his caragors’ rations and in return, Ratbag had let him do… all kinds of things to him. Sometimes - once or twice, from time to time - there had even been a fleeting bit of pleasure for Ratbag himself in it. More often there had not, because that wasn’t how these arrangements tended to work in practice. The Wrangler wasn’t the first, nor had he by any means been Ratbag’s last, and before Talion, he had been completely resigned to it. That was just the way things went when you were small, and cowardly, in Mordor. Still, in that moment he remembered the Wrangler’s advice, and tried to make himself look larger than he was in reality. The next instant however, the caragor called his bluff. Ratbag flung himself sideways and out of the way as it rushed at, and then past him.

Ratbag fell back, cursing himself, and crouched, panting in terror and panic, by Talion’s side. Now the caragor was stalking them at close range, hidden in the long grass and Ratbag hadn’t a weapon. No blade, or dagger: not so much as a paring knife. But the Ranger had swords: a pair of them, in sheaths on his back. Surely, under the circumstances, he wouldn’t object to Ratbag maybe having a quick borrow of one, would he?

He barely had a chance to draw the shorter, broken-bladed weapon before the caragor was on him again. It pounced, rearing up on its back legs and lunging forwards, intent on closing its jaws round a mouthful of Orcish throat. Ratbag threw his arms up in front of him protectively and its claws raked across and down his hands and forearms, catching and holding on the pair of bracers he wore as he staggered back a step, and then another under the beast’s abominable weight. Afterwards the thick leather was scored deeply, but for the time being it held and at least was durable enough that it prevented the wrist-veins near the surface of Ratbag’s skin from being shredded open.

They wrestled silently, the caragor braced against Ratbag on its hind feet and pushing its weight down and onto him, chest to chest. After a long moment it checked itself, adjusting its stance and seeking to wrap its massive forepaws more securely around the Orc’s ribcage. As its forelimbs closed around him in a ghastly bear-hug, Ratbag butted his head upwards at it with a desperate movement. His blow hit home with a force that made Ratbag’s eyes water, making an immensely satisfying impact with the underside of the caragor’s jaw that snapped the beast’s jaws together with a loud _click_. As it dropped down onto all fours again, shaking its head and faltering in its tracks, Ratbag, without precision or direction seized the opportunity provided by its distraction. He heaved Talion’s broken blade around in a flailing sideways swipe and the flat of it struck the caragor, hard, directly across the end of its nose.

The outcome was both immediate and surprising. The caragor sprang back, making a high-pitched, yowling, yammering noise and at the same time a great spurt of blood - a heated, streaming fountain - sprayed from its nostrils and spattered out onto Ratbag, over the broken sword, and down into the grass. Clawing with both forepaws at its injured muzzle, the caragor kit tucked its sparsely-furred stub of a tail between its legs and fled, the sound of its caterwauling steadily diminishing with distance as it ran further and further away.

Ratbag’s legs gave out under him and he collapsed to the ground, shaking all over. He couldn’t yet get to his feet and had to crawl to Talion, which he did doggedly, on hands and knees. He patted at him clumsily using the backs of his injured, bleeding hands. Ow. That smarted. Ratbag crossed his arms across his chest and squeezed his palms into his armpits, to keep them out the way. Maybe he’d get a minute to see about that, later.

“Ranger. How you doing, Ranger?” Ratbag’s voice was scratchy with fright and the words caught in his throat. Coincidence or not, just then Talion’s breath went out of him in a pained, shuddering exhale. There was a pause before he drew it in again.

Breathing! The Ranger was still breathing. Relief flooded Ratbag and cowardly tears pricked at the backs of his eyes because he didn’t think he could’ve… what with all that had happened and then if the poor bastard had _still_ ended up croaking it. That would’ve been… Ratbag was intimately acquainted with cruelty in its varied and many different varieties but that, _that_ he would’ve found too difficult to bear. Still on all fours he shuffled his way down the length of his companion’s body and draped himself, gratefully, over Talion’s feet. It wasn’t even as if he was taking that much of a liberty cuddling up to him like that; not _really_. Surely not if it was just feet. He closed his eyes and rested - just for a minute - there.

He had no idea how much, or little time had passed when a voice, speaking in peevish tones, sounded right next to Ratbag’s ear. Celebrimbor! The white as snow and twice as cold-hearted _git_ was back! 

“That was unlucky,” he informed Ratbag. “What an _exceptionally_ poor choice for you to have made. I _do_ wonder what you can have been thinking.”

By this point Ratbag had had more than his fill of Celebrimbor’s interminable double-speak, not to mention his all-round mealy-mouthed Elvish _shrakh_. “What’re you droning on about this time, _Elf?”_ he growled.

“You’re aware to whom that sword once belonged, aren’t you?” Celebrimbor continued smoothly. “Talion’s beloved son Dirhael broke it on the necks of Orcs the night the Hand of Sauron took the Black Gate. It was the night that same band of Orcs slaughtered the boy and his mother - and Talion himself, for that matter, so I think you can see why he would object to an Orc apprehending such a weapon for his own use. Anyone would. He’s going to be _furious_ with you.”

Ratbag shook his head, defiant. “He won’t be. The Ranger wouldn’t! Ratbag knows he’s going to… that if Ratbag explains, he’ll understand.”

“If you knew Talion half as well as I do - which of course you don’t and never _could_ \- you might begin to be able to appreciate the depth of the Man’s feelings where his family are concerned. I’m telling you that he won’t take kindly to this.” Celebrimbor stared off into the distance for a moment, as if contemplating what he’d just said. “Talion will have to save face by punishing you, I expect,” he announced and paused, giving that unwelcome information a chance to sink in.

As the Orc turned to him uncertainly Celebrimbor pushed his advantage. “I’d certainly think about lying low for a while, were I to find myself in your unenviable position. It would be for the best all round if you were to make yourself scarce.” And then he added - “You should run.”

 _Now_ , at last they came to it, and talk about pouring poison in Ratbag’s ear! Taken him long enough to get to the point, hadn’t it? With his smooth words, and faux-concern, and wasn’t Ratbag a prize-winning idiot for forgetting? _Never_ trust an Elf! With an angry movement he hurled Dirhael’s sword at Celebrimbor’s shade - but of course the sword he’d thrown passed straight through him and only scuffed down onto the ground a short distance away.

Ratbag rounded on him. “I just bet you want Ratbag to make himself scarce! You hoping that caragor’s going to come back, are you, Wraith?”

Celebrimbor’s voice when he replied was as sour as curdled milk. “With any luck. Perhaps.” He didn’t speak again.

Time passed. The heat of the day waned and with the cooler air in the evening, the laboured sounds of Talion’s breathing slowly began to ease. He healed slowly, but he healed eventually, as he always did, and the silvery light of a crescent moon saw him laboriously trying to prop himself up on his side. Ratbag hurried to him, and helped him sit.

Even in the moonlight Ratbag could see the shocking pallor of his face; the dark purple bruise-like hollows around his eyes. His clothes and cloak were torn, and stiff with a quantity of blood that no amount of washing was ever likely to erase, but the skin beneath, where he’d been injured, had mended perfectly. It was pink and tender-looking, but there was not so much as the faintest trace of a scar.

Ratbag nodded at him solicitously. “Glad to have you back, Ranger. All better now?”

The Ranger’s smile was tired and wry. “Thank you, Ratbag,” he said. “Almost.” He looked harrowed to the bone, exhausted. It was clear to Ratbag that the poor Man needed sleep and care and kind attention in the wake of his ordeal, but even clearer to him was the fact that Talion wasn’t likely to receive any of those things. All he’d got was a useless Orc: and now a impatient Elf to deal with too, because alongside Talion’s revival had come a renewal of Celebrimbor’s interest in him. The Shade, glowing with an unnatural, bright-white luminosity in the moonlight, was affecting a nonchalant pose, standing with his back half-turned, a few steps away across the clearing from them.

“Faithful as a dog,” Celebrimbor drawled, sounding grudgingly amused. As if Talion’s suffering and Ratbag’s fear for him and lasting panic all through that awful, blood-soaked afternoon meant so little they counted only as jokes for him to laugh about. “He does _follow_ you like a dog, I suppose,” Celebrimbor continued. “You should be glad to know what a great impression you’ve managed to make, Talion. I’d never have guessed the depths of devotion a Man like you would be capable of inspiring.”

A long, significant look passed between Talion and Ratbag, with urgent questions asked, and eager answers to those questions wordlessly given.

“Will the Bards want to sing songs about it, do you think?” the Elf-lord added waspishly, when neither Man nor Orc made much of a response to him.

Talion’s voice was unutterably weary when at last he replied. “Speak plainly, if you can, Celebrimbor,” he said. “It’s been a difficult day.”

“I’m talking about that Orc, and about how he refused to leave your side.”

“I know he didn’t, and I thank him for it,” Talion put in swiftly, and with absolute sincerity.

“Are you also aware that he took on a caragor for you?” the Elf-lord said, all the while watching Talion’s reaction through narrow, heavy-lidded eyes. Whatever he saw obviously displeased him and huffing out a derisive snort he muttered: “Man’s Best Friend, indeed.”

Talion turned towards Ratbag in surprise. “You fought off a caragor?”

The Orc bared his teeth with a self-depreciating grin. “It was only a really small one though, wasn’t it, Ranger? No more than a half-grown kit. Ratbag could never have handled one that had its proper _oomph_ about it, could he?”

“’Its proper ‘oomph’?’” Talion repeated, faint crinkles of amusement appearing round the corners of his eyes.

“And now you’d better tell him about _how_ you managed to drive the beast off,” Celebrimbor commented. Having taken the time to deliver that last, spiteful parting-shot, the Wraith flickered out of sight.

Ratbag paused. A leaden, sinking feeling was in the pit of his stomach as he remembered what Celebrimbor had told him: about the provenance of the sword that Talion, unwittingly, had lent him. Ratbag’s heart began to beat fast, and faster with renewed fear and panic. Mentally he berated himself because now he realised he’d had ample time, and yet Ratbag was such a…

_(useless, worthless, forgetful piece-of-shrakh excuse for an Orc)_

…such a hopeless, incompetent _ninny_ that somehow he had forgotten to clean, and replace Dirhael’s sword, and now there could be no hiding what he’d done. The best he could hope for was that Talion would find it in himself to be lenient when the Ranger doled out a much-deserved punishment to Ratbag: punishment for having dared to lay his filthy Orc hands on Talion’s beloved son’s weapon. Feeling sick with apprehension Ratbag crouched down and picked up the discarded sword from where it was lying in the grass.

Dried blood and clumps of clotted hair were dulling the length of the blade. _Of course._ Because Ratbag hadn’t just taken the sword without permission - oh, no. He’d only had to go and bloody well _besmirch_ the thing as well.

He kept his head bowed as he approached Talion, not able to countenance the look of anger and reproach with which he felt sure the Ranger must now be regarding him. He was dizzy with shame as he held the sword in both hands outstretched and dropped to his knees in front of Talion. “Ratbag’s sorry, Ranger,” he began.

_(Not **nearly** good enough)_

“Ratbag… he knows he should never have taken it. He’d no idea how special it was to you. And he hopes you know that he… he hopes you won’t be too angry with him.”

Out of the corner of his eye Ratbag caught the movement of Talion’s hand, no doubt reaching forwards to strike him, and though he’d steeled himself to bear it, was such a hopeless _coward_ that he couldn’t stop himself from ducking his head and cringing away.

Talion took the sword out of Ratbag’s hands and set it down again. “Anything I have is yours to use,” he told him. “I thought you knew that.” He took hold of the Orc’s hands in both his own and turned them over and back again, gently examining them. “Ratbag?” His brow wrinkled with concern. “You’re injured.”

Not six hours since he’d been cut almost in half across the middle, yet here Talion was worrying about Ratbag’s injuries, and wasn’t that _just like_ him? Ridiculously self-sacrificing, or what? Ratbag blinked up at the Ranger. “It’s just scratches,” he said, ‘cause that’s all they were: scratches.

“These are _caragor_ scratches.”

Ratbag shrugged his shoulders, abashed. “Only from a little one.”

Still with his careful hold of Ratbag’s hands Talion pulled him close, and sat him down by his side. “But they’re caragor scratches, still. Now that wasn’t very cowardly of you, Ratbag.”

Cripes! What was wrong with him? It hadn’t occurred to Ratbag, at least until the words had left Talion’s mouth, to think for a moment about that part of it. He’d only gone and risked life and limb for him!

Talion leaned in and with his arm around him, pushed his nose and mouth against the side of Ratbag’s head. He held them there for a long moment, breathing in and out steadily. Then when he whispered, “That wasn’t cowardly at all,” the brush of his lips was soft and warm against Ratbag’s temple, and his nearness, and the Ranger’s kindness to him made Ratbag feel like he was floating. Yes, he might’ve risked life and limb for Talion, but something made it all worthwhile.

At last the Ranger drew back and faced him, with a serious expression. “Promise me you’ll never do anything like that again.”

Shaking his head Ratbag stared back at him, not comprehending.

“When I’m killed I come back from it,” Talion told him flatly. “You won’t.”

Ratbag scratched his head. “Should… should Ratbag have done as the Elf said, then?”

“And what did the Elf say?” That puzzled, catching-up-with-the-conversation look he sometimes got was all over Talion’s face again, and it was lucky there were no more caragors nearby because when his Ranger looked so soft, and so baffled like that, there was a good chance that Ratbag might’ve gladly thrown his life away battling a whole _pack_ of them on his behalf.

“He told Ratbag that he should…” but he couldn’t bring himself to say it, so instead he mimed with his fist as if he was holding a dagger and then, because the very idea of doing such a thing to Talion was unthinkable, Ratbag mimed himself cutting his own throat.

Talion regarded him for a moment, frowning. “That you should put me out of my misery, you mean?” he suggested faintly, and Ratbag recognised the look of fear - real fear - that came into his eyes when he said it. That was because Ratbag had seen that kind of fear, and felt it for himself far, far too many times. “By the stars _no_ , Ratbag,” Talion continued. “I’d go a long way to avoid that. No matter how many times it happens, it’s never pleasant, dying.”

“Even when you know you’re going to come back from it?”

Talion closed his eyes and drew his breath in, then out in a short shuddering exhale. “Based on past experience, I’d say… _especially_ when you know you’re going to come back from it.”

“Then _why_ won’t you let Ratbag help…”

Talion spoke over him emphatically. “I thank you for it. Truly I do. But, Ratbag, please don’t do it again.”

Brave, honest, noble _and_ self-sacrificing he was, see? Just exactly as Ratbag always said.

Later on that evening, after Talion’s recovery, they were both sorely in need of water, to clean themselves in as well as to drink.

They set off following the half-dry creek-bed Ratbag had visited earlier in the day, which eventually led them to the margins of a wide, shallow, lowland lake. Such a body of water would usually have drawn game animals, and the caragors that preyed upon them from miles around, but this lake stood on the outskirts of a graug’s hunting range. Talion had pointed out in passing the heaped bone-cairns and piles of chalky, weathered droppings that the graug had left as markers for its territory. As he explained to Ratbag, there was a good chance that the presence of this far larger, more powerful hunter would keep the lesser predators away, and although they approached cautiously, the shores of the lake were quiet. On such a warm, moonlit night the graug itself was likely off chasing caragors, its favoured prey.

In the still of the evening there was scarcely a ripple on the lake’s dark waters. Talion paused only for a moment before wading straight in.

But before he did so he turned to Ratbag on the shoreline. “Your nose is better than mine,” he told him. “Can you tell if it’s safe?”

Ratbag was not only touched and flattered but made anxious, and also extremely aggravated by the nonchalant faith the Ranger was placing in him. “You trust Ratbag?” he exclaimed. “That he’ll tell you the truth and not steer you wrong? Aren’t you scared he’s planning to stab you in the back?” What was _wrong_ with the Ranger? Putting his trust in someone like Ratbag? That kind of blind-spot could so easily end up being the finish of him!

Talion laid his hand on Ratbag’s shoulder and let him feel the warm, companionable weight of it resting there before answering. “Ratbag,” he said gravely, “if you were planning on doing that, I should think you had ample enough opportunities for it earlier this afternoon.”

“Well, yeah. Yeah,” Ratbag replied, flustered by the contact, as well Talion’s closeness to him, “I mean I’d _never_ let you… so of course it’s _safe._ ” Rallying, he grinned up at Talion. “Apart from, y’know, all the water it has in it. ‘Cause you want to watch that. There’s always a big risk of drowning, with that sort of thing.”

Talion smiled at him. “I’ll take my chances.” He turned, and in he went. He strode, hampered only to some extent by the press of the water, directly into the lake, with his cape on, and boots; fully clothed from head to foot and still kitted out in all of his leather armour. He wasn’t wearing his weapons carrier or sword-belt, but otherwise didn’t stop to take off a thing.

“Talion.” Ratbag called him from the shore. “Talion! Now, Ratbag know he’s new to this lake-bathing malarkey, but” - and here he felt himself colouring up to the tips of his ears at the positively delectable concept - “aren’t you supposed to take at least _some_ of your clothes off before you go for your swim?”

The shoreline shelved very gradually. When the water level reached as high as his hips, Talion sat down suddenly. He gave a weary sigh as his wet cloak billowed out around him. “I couldn’t bear the smell of the blood another minute.”

“So… so this is one of those kill-two-bats jobs, is it?”

“That’s right.” He spoke over his shoulder to Ratbag. “Ratbag? Aren’t you coming in?”

The thought made Orc’s stomach turn over with fright and, barely realising he was doing it, he began pacing back and forth in agitation. That was because some of Ratbag’s worst memories involved submersion, and drowning. They also counted as his very earliest recollections, on account of when it had happened: in the spawning vats. 

He remembered awakening to panicky half-consciousness. Then flailing weakly through viscous fluid, his movements barely co-ordinated as yet, struggling for breath. Being dunked and held under the surface again and again by his far stronger, larger clutch-mates in the course of their own efforts to break free.

Finally, _finally,_ Ratbag managed to fight his way to firm ground at the edge of the birthing pod. The other Uruks with whom he’d shared his vat were gone, having been spirited away into the main body of the Fortress by the Orc Overseers who attended the maturation of each batch. It was a streamlined, efficient process as it had to be, for turnover rates in the Black Army were high, meaning that tasks and roles needed to be quickly assigned. In the Fortress the freshly-minted Uruk recruits would be measured and assessed.

In a cruel, if completely accurate foreshadowing of his miserable future life, the newly-emerged Ratbag found himself alone and overlooked. The thick, elastic membrane of the pod that had contained him during his unnaturally accelerated development was wound around his lower body and was hampering his limbs. With his arms pinned to his sides he could only inch his way, bodily forwards out of the muck, squirming and thrashing on his sides and belly, like a maggot. Spluttering and suffocating, blinded by the cloying muck that was in his eyes and was filling his nostrils, he lay, half-in and half-out of the vat, panting for breath, as waves of painful awareness of _who_ and _what_ he was went crashing through him. Already the words - all the possible words - were burning clear and bright in Ratbag’s head but with his muscles in a palsy and his throat tight in a spasm of breathlessness and panic he was not yet able to speak.

And so when the next Overseer, come to freshen and reseed the vat arrived and asked him for his name and ranking, Ratbag, though he knew full well the answers to the questions the Overseer was asking, was able to only wheeze and whimper at him, and could say nothing in reply.

That was when, for being in the Overseer’s words: _‘Hmph! Another defective piece of useless glob-shrakh’_ the _bastard_ only went and kicked him back in.

It was much worse getting out of there for Ratbag, the second time around.

On the lake-shore Ratbag stood, and licked his lips nervously. He was afraid of drowning and being held under water, that was the beginning and end of it, and the mere thought of full-body immersion left his mouth bone dry. “What,” he said to Talion, “in there?”

Frowning, the Ranger watched him for a moment. Then he said, “You needn’t, if you don’t want to.” His reply was mild.

So instead Ratbag sat down on a rock and watched Talion’s methodical efforts to loosen the blood-stains from his wet clothes and cloak. At length he waded back through the shallows, then draped the items he’d been washing out to dry on the scrubby, twisted branches of the white-barked trees that lined the shore.

“Ranger? You finished yet?”

“Not quite.” Talion shook his head. “I have to do the rest of me, next.” He struggled out of his torn linen shirt, having trouble getting it off over the top of his head where the movement obviously put strain upon his recently injured side. After wringing some of the water out he shook it loose and hung it to dry with his other things. There was something odd, something hesitant, about the way he half-turned from Ratbag as he said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll just have to…”

Then he was unfastening, and quickly stepping out of his breeches and _Ratbag didn’t know where to look!_

Yes he ruddy well _did_ know: where to look, that is. Down at the ground, off to one side, and _anywhere_ but directly at Talion. Ratbag was an Uruk of Mordor. That meant that qualms regarding nakedness were a luxury he could ill afford, or at least they were when it came to his own nakedness, and the nakedness of other Orcs.

Talion, however, was such a long way from being anything like an Orc that even to Ratbag, inured by circumstances as he was to the concept of privacy and self-consciousness, there seemed something indecent in the thought of ogling at him.

Moving with some haste the Ranger stepped back into the lake. As he moved further away Ratbag let himself peek, shyly, at his rapidly receding form. The moonlight was bright on the pale skin of his back, and the smooth muscles of his shoulders were supple and lithe. He couldn’t see a mark, or a scar, or a blemish on him.

Ratbag’s jaw dropped open. He couldn’t help but stare, and stare. Talion looked… he looked like…

Without a shadow of a doubt Talion, in that lake by moonlight was the most beautiful sight that Ratbag had ever, _ever_ seen.

Scarcely knowing what he was about the Orc sat down again and watched him: watched Talion scoop up handfuls of the somewhat gritty lake sediment, which he rubbed into his hair and used to scour his underarms and back. When he was finished he dipped his head under entirely and went swimming underwater with a few, unhurried strokes. Ratbag was caught in a proper agony of anxiousness until he resurfaced, a short way down the shore.

He was glad to see that Talion was still well within his depth when he next stood up again.

A warm night breeze had started blowing, and was softly shifting the pale reed-stalks at the margins of the lake. Like a long, deep exhalation, a slow current of air stirred right across the surface of the water and with it a quick succession of arrow-headed ripples speared their way towards the shore.

Talion bent down, closely examining something. He dipped his hands into the water, then swirled them back and forth, transfixed. “Ratbag!” he cried. “Look!”

The sound of his voice, upraised, had Ratbag, fearing the worst, immediately galumphing towards him. He flailed awkwardly through the water, weighed down by his waterlogged sandals and bone-spiked armour like an exceeding foolish thing.

“Talion! Talion! What is it?” 

The Ranger turned to him, an expression of awe and wonder clearly written across his face. “Ratbag,” he said. _“Look.”_

And as he grazed his fingertips through the very upper surface-layers of the water, the arching movement he made was hesitantly replicated by a soft, flashing, green-lit glow. Tiny specks of pale, sea-green light winked on and flared brightly for a moment, growing, then fading in intensity as the currents ebbed and waned.

Talion trailed his forearm through the water. A brighter flash of light followed in a ghostly, glowing wave. As the surface calmed, the brightness gradually abated until the still water reflected only the pinpoint lights of the starry sky above.

“Ratbag! Have you _ever_ seen…?”

The Orc shook his head vehemently. He hadn’t seen, and had no reason to ever want to! “What _are_ they?” he exclaimed, realising, even as he spoke that the answer truly _didn’t matter._ “Come on, Ranger,” he cried, “quick! Before they turn flesh-eating, or start to poison you…”

The Ranger straightened up, frowning. “Are either of those things very likely to happen?”

“I’ve no idea but Talion! What’s got into you? This is _Mordor!”_

But he wasn’t listening to Ratbag; he was busy stirring the water with his hands again. “I think I’ve heard travellers’ tales about this,” he said. “They’d speak about a gleaming, or a brightness in the water that comes with summer. I never thought I’d see it for myself, though. I thought it only happened in the sea.”

“But what _is_ it?”

“People, one of the Men, said it’s tiny creatures, so small you can only ever see them by their lights. Here.” Talion came in and stood closer, so close that between the spikes of his armour, across the back of his neck Ratbag would’ve sworn he could feel the warmth radiating from the Ranger’s front. Taking hold of Ratbag’s wrist, he moved the Orc’s hand in a gentle swipe through the water. “Now you go.”

“Oh!” Ratbag watched the lake-lights bloom and flare. Talion’s hand over his, the sensations and the strange, shifting brightness sifting with the water through his fingers; even he had to admit that it was quite pleasant, really. “Why do they do it, Ranger?” 

“The Man said they do it most when they’re disturbed. Perhaps that means it scares away the things that want to eat them.”

Ratbag snorted, sceptical. “All that bloomin’ rigmarole, just to frighten _fish?”_

Talion gave one of his quiet huffs of amusement, a response he’d sometimes make to the things that Ratbag said, or did. The Orc turned towards him happily because he liked to please Talion: _loved_ pleasing him, but when he saw the way that the Ranger was looking at him, with such warmth and fondness in his expression, the follow-up joke he’d been about to make dwindled at once to nothingness in his throat.

“You don’t sound convinced.” Talion’s tone when he spoke was teasingly sedate. “If not frightening fish, then what d’you think those little lake-creatures can be doing?”

The words of Ratbag’s reply were out of his mouth before he had a chance to properly consider, or better yet, censor them. Looking up into Talion’s wide, soft eyes he said, “Ratbag thinks they make those colours to be beautiful, for their mates.”

Regarding him with a steady look, Talion moved his hand up to Ratbag’s jaw and held him there for a moment, cupping the side of his face. Ratbag nuzzled into it, gratefully. “Is that right,” the Ranger murmured, his fingers stroking the Orc’s marred, hollow cheek. “Really. I wonder why I so often feel surprised when I hear the things that Ratbag would like to think.”

Full of wariness Ratbag asked him, “So is it… is the surprise you’re talking about, like, a _nice_ surprise?”

Talion nodded slowly. “I’m always pleasantly surprised by you. Very pleasantly indeed.”

Ratbag closed his eyes and then, with unsurpassed daring, raised his hand up to press against Talion’s, where it was still gentling him across his face. But the movement reopened the wounds the caragor had left on him, and he winced and flinched at the unexpected spike of pain.

“You’re injured. What am I thinking,” Talion said. His voice was heavy with self-reproach.

And the Orc, very much fearing he’d ruined the moment, began to back away; but with his thumbs hooked through the armholes of Ratbag’s armoured breastplate, Talion simply pulled him close in again against his chest.

Talion looked down at him for a moment, and cleared his throat. “Ratbag, he began, “since you’re in the water now, and won’t want to use your hands, perhaps it would be an idea for me to…”

“What, Ranger?”

Talion’s smile was lopsided as he held up a palmful of the sandy lake sediment. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to help wash you.” He coloured up. “That is, to help you wash yourself.”

Ratbag blinked owlishly at him. He didn’t reply, which in due course Talion seemed to take as a sign of his acquiescence: which it wasn’t, exactly, but without further protest he allowed Talion to forge his way ahead.

“This’ll have to come off, first.” He unfastened Ratbag’s armour, dealing with the obscure style of fastening with such speed and alarming efficiency it was almost as if he’d been making some intense prior study of the subject, then let the breast and back-plates settle in the shallower water near to shore. “And your sandals and leggings too,” he advised. For all that he made a decorous show of looking tactfully away as Ratbag undressed himself, he had a shrewd idea that the tricksy Tark bastard was watching him sidelong all the while. Yes, he _was._ Ratbag would’ve bet money on it!

“That’s better,” Talion announced, once Ratbag was standing there naked as the day he’d been spawned. Then with a forceful tug on his arm he pulled Ratbag back into the water and had him sit down in the shallows, turning him round so that Ratbag’s back was lodged up against his front.

There they were, with Talion’s long legs bracketing Ratbag’s body on either side. The Orc could feel his breath, close and warm across the top of his head. “Here,” Talion said. “Why don’t you lean on me.”

It ought to have felt unbearably claustrophobic, being so close to him and confined like that. And there was fear, yes, but the strange thing was that Ratbag felt it more on account of the things the Ranger _wouldn’t_ do.

He reached round and smoothed a handful of the sandy silt the length of Ratbag’s forearms, and working underwater, onto his thighs and shins, before solicitously rinsing it off again. As he set about Ratbag he didn’t stop speaking, muttering to him in a constant, soothing, litany that the Orc could hear, as well as feel from the close-quarters vibration of Talion’s voice deep in his chest. “You see?” he was saying, “that’s _good,_ Ratbag. It doesn’t have to be painful, or awful. You’re afraid of the water, I know that, but can’t you see? There’s really no need to be.”

Ratbag’s back and chest and armpits were next. Then Talion rubbed and sluiced down his shoulders and his flanks. The water was cold and when he was finished Ratbag shuffled backwards, pressing himself even more firmly against Talion’s front, searching for warmth. Ratbag must have surprised him with the movement, or something, because as he shimmied closer and let his head fall back against Talion’s shoulder, he heard the Man’s breath quicken, and hitch.

‘In for a ghûl, in for a graug…’ Ratbag thought, before he asked, innocently, “What about Ratbag’s other ‘crevices?’”

His companion’s reply was uncertain. “Your other…?”

Ratbag let his legs fall open so they were resting one against each of Talion’s thighs.

“If you want to do a thorough job of it, you might want to think about washing Ratbag’s other crevices. His… his _crotch_ crevices.”

(Because Ratbag bets he’s absolutely _filthy,_ down there.)

Talion hesitated only for the barest moment before rising to the challenge, and did so magnificently. One of his forearms went across Ratbag’s chest and held him tight and secure against his body. The other hand reached down and went carefully rubbing at him, into the crevices and the places he had named. And it might’ve been Ratbag’s imagination, but he would’ve sworn that the Ranger let his thumb go teasing, probing lightly, right along the line of flesh where Ratbag’s left leg met his lower body.

Surely _not_ his imagination, because then the Ranger only went and did the exact same thing, on the other side.

With the chill of the water however, Ratbag’s knob and his ball-sack had more or less retracted in on themselves, leaving not much more than a collection of sad little stubby, wrinkled things. That meant for the moment that he couldn’t feel much else of Talion’s hand down there.

‘More’s the pity.’

Of a sudden Talion drew back from him and slapped him companionably between the shoulder-blades. Ratbag could hear him trying to keep the smile out of his voice as he said, “That’s enough! Enough of these Orc antics and talk of ‘crevices’ and nonsense! You’re getting cold. And, don’t forget, we’ve yet to wash your hair.” Afterwards he was as good as his word. He had Ratbag tilt his head forwards, and then with another good handful of the lake sediment or two, that’s precisely what he did.

‘Now here Ratbag is with his Undead Tark Ranger,’ thought Ratbag, as Talion’s capable fingers kneaded his scalp and rubbed and sluiced at him, ‘who’s washing the hair of his cowardly Orcish companion, both of them sat in a lake, in the middle of Mordor, by moonlight.’

No. There was nothing, not one single thing he could think of that was odd about that at all.

But there wasn’t much spare meat, or an ounce of fat on Ratbag’s body and that meant that he did keenly feel the cold. The moment that shivers began to wrack his lean form Talion, in short order, ushered him out of the lake. The Ranger’s blanket roll, which Ratbag had saved from their bivouac that morning, was lying on the shore. Talion shook it loose, spread it on the sand and lay on it, inviting Ratbag down to join him.

Ratbag hung back, uncertain. Having ostensibly been washed in the lake by Talion was one thing, but surely there was something else and there were other things - all kinds of things - that could be read into this.

“There’s no need to be shy,” Talion told him. “We just need to get you warm.”

“Shy?” The Orc exclaimed, puffing up with ire, incensed. “But Ratbag’s an Uruk of Mordor! Uruks don’t get” - and he had to spit the words out because as it happened, it described _exactly_ how he was feeling at that moment - “Uruks are never _‘shy’_ about _anything!”_

“Well then,” Talion replied mildly. “Good. Come here.”

And that was how Ratbag found himself, once again, with his back pressed tight to Talion’s front. The two of them were lying on their sides this time, cocooned in Talion’s blanket, with Talion’s warm skin lodged full-length against him, and the Ranger’s hands solicitously chafing up and down at the goose-bumped flesh on Ratbag’s arms. Merely being _distracted_ by him didn’t begin to cover how Ratbag felt about their situation. The poor Orc’s thoughts went racing…

As far as he could tell, just now Talion was in much the same - reduced - state as Ratbag was himself, following the cold water of the lake. But given the warmth, and the closeness of them huddled together in this blanket-roll; once he’d had a chance to take stock, and rested, wouldn’t there be a good chance of things turning out to be different for him, _downstairs?_ Delightful, irresistible friction, resulting from the slide of his smooth skin against Ratbag’s naked buttocks and, and… perhaps he wouldn’t be able to help himself. He’d roll Ratbag over to face him… and he’d have that same look in his eyes as he did in the lake, only this time cloudy, and heavy with need. There’d be no reason for him to say anything. Ratbag would look down the Ranger’s body and see how helplessly hard he was: already leaking for Ratbag, maybe. That was all right. It would be Ratbag’s pleasure to attend to him.

What with his recent injuries, he’d have no option but to lie there quietly, on his back. There he’d be, with Ratbag splayed wide open across his thighs and Talion spearing him, almost unbearably full and tight, as far as he could get inside. He’d have to let - or maybe he’d _want_ to make - Ratbag do the brunt of the work. Ratbag - he’d be shamelessly riding him. _How_ Ratbag wanted it, to be taken by Talion like that. He wondered what kind of noises the Ranger would make. What his face - cleared of all worry and pain and overtaken, for once, with transcendent sensation might look like. Ratbag thought he’d give anything, just for a chance to see it.

But Talion: he knew Talion well enough to know that the Man wouldn’t like ceding control. He’d want to wrest some of that back from Ratbag; there was a good chance that’s how he would deal with it.

Ratbag, still pinioned on top of Talion. He’d be weak and shaking as a result of his strenuous efforts: right on the brink of his climax and so very close, needing only the littlest bit of stimulation to tip him into it, head-over-heels... but Talion, though. Talion wasn’t letting him enjoy that release, not yet. He wouldn’t: simply refused to touch him in the place where he was so aching and pulsing in need of it, wouldn’t even allow Ratbag to use his own miserable ministrations to bring it about himself. Maybe, maybe there’d be _other_ measures, preventative measures that the Ranger had taken. His hands, wrapped warm and strong round Ratbag’s wrists, holding Ratbag off from touching himself and Ratbag understanding that if he wanted to come, there was only one way that that was going to be permitted. Ratbag was going to have to try and fuck himself onto him, hard, _harder…_

“Mmmh.” In the warmth of the bed-roll Talion threw his arm across Ratbag and pulled him close. Wrapping himself comfortably round the Orc’s body, he secured his blanket more tightly around the both of them. And as he did so the swirl of emotions, and vicarious sensation brought about by all of Talion’s kindnesses to him, as well as Ratbag’s fantasy, at once crystallised and coalesced into a single, rock-solid sentiment that lodged itself, shining bright and imperviously in the middle of his chest.

Grumbling quietly under his breath, Talion was snuffling his nose through the lank hair at the back of Ratbag’s neck.

“You all right there, Ranger?” Ratbag asked him, and it wasn’t until he began to speak did Ratbag realise that for all the time since Talion had broken in on his musings by embracing him, he’d been grinning out into the night at nothing, wildly. For some reason at that moment the Orc felt wide awake. More alive, alert and… and _joyful_ than he’d ever in his life been before.

“I’ve shot myself in the foot, I think,” Talion replied, “with all that washing,” he sighed, and muttered, drowsily. “Now you don’t smell like you.”

His breathing slowed, and deepened, and Ratbag felt the Ranger’s arm around him grow heavy, and completely relaxed. Ratbag, for one, needed no reminding of the trials the Ranger had faced that day. Sleep and care and kind attention, and Ratbag didn’t begrudge him a minute of any of it. Settling himself against Talion’s gently snoring chest, the Orc prepared to watch over him ‘til morning.

***


	7. Homecoming

*

The first colourless hints of false dawn were limning the saw-jagged edges of the peaks when Ratbag was nudged out of sleep with a simple sideways jerk of Az-Harto’s head. He startled awake, claws scrabbling against the heavy, scaled hide of the Olog’s nape and shoulder without making any real impression, but the squawk of alarm he’d instinctively drawn breath for was choked off by Az-Harto’s growl of “Quiet!”, which was so deep Ratbag felt it rumbling up through his bones as much as he heard it. In answer to Ratbag’s bleary-eyed stare, still glazed from sleep, the Olog added, “Home is round the next bend. You will need explaining. Stay close until I do.”

Ratbag gulped. “Got it,” he whispered, flattening his ears and wriggling down until he was as hidden as he could be under the fur, and for one absurd moment, wishing that he still had the beaky helmet he’d masqueraded under as half of the Etten: at least it would have offered some meagre pretence of protection.

Then Az-Harto was moving again, his stride no longer the unvarying, clockwork-steady beat that all these days of travel had pounded into Ratbag’s brain. Now, somehow, the boom of it was louder in his ears, the impact of it reverberated deeper through his bones as he was borne along at a faster and more buoyant pace. There was an anticipation in it all, an excitement in this steady acceleration from a stride to an earthshaking trot that was contagious, even had Ratbag not known that he was speeding now toward a decidedly uncertain future. Ratbag could feel them make an abrupt turn in the road, and then he heard a shout in the distance: it was in Black Speech of course, but from its tone it was clearly a challenge, and Ratbag felt Az-Harto’s barrel chest expanding, his shoulder rising under Ratbag’s body as he roared out a reply in the same tongue, in the same challenging tone.

Ratbag risked poking his head up above the fur just enough to glimpse what was happening. He saw they were now in a narrow pass, hemmed in between two sheer cliffs, barely wide enough for two Ologs to pass abreast. Ahead in the pass, a single Olog stood barring the way. His hide, like Az-Harto’s, was the same dark bluish-grey as the surrounding stone, his stance and expression as forbidding as the mace he brandished threateningly: every bit as long and thick and viciously spiked and generally menacing as the one Az-Harto unslung from his back and smacked meaningfully into one thick palm.

The gesture was mirrored by the Olog in the path, who bared his fangs.

Az-Harto barked out a laugh, and his trot exploded into a flat-out sprint.

Ratbag yelped and ducked, digging his claws into every strap and scrap of fur and leather and hide he could grip. He hung on for grim death as the two mighty Ologs collided full tilt, head to head and chest to chest, with a crash that sounded to him like the immense Gorthaur statue had sounded in its doom: hundreds of feet of stone, collapsing.

That earth-shattering impact was joined by paired grunts as wind was knocked out of both sets of lungs, the meaty smacks of wrestling arms gripping torsos tight, and then more words, low and growling, rumbling like thunder…

…and _chuckling?_

Ratbag blinked. Still, there were none of the familiar gasps and grunts, the catches in breathing that escape with pain, however carefully suppressed. He waited another breath or two. …Huh. He may not have known a single sodding word of Black Speech, but that was a definite laugh, and not the jeering, gloating kind you throw at an enemy either!

He stuck his head up above the fur. The bloody Ologs were _hugging!_

The strange Olog lifted his head just in time to catch sight of Ratbag peering over Az-Harto’s shoulder. His eyes went wide with shock in a way that was only emphasised by the dark markings around them - so like Az-Harto’s - and his expression went livid. He broke their embrace with the suddenness of a snapped thread, taking two steps back and biting out something in cold, clipped tones.

Ratbag sighed. There it was, yet again, the one recurring fact of his sad and sorry life: the cold and certain knowledge that he’d well and truly fucked up.

Az-Harto drew himself up and declared something, slow and pointed and definite, a head-tilt indicating Ratbag as he did so; the word _agormol_ coinciding with the indication.

However the other Olog didn’t share Az-Harto’s conviction: in fact, he stared from Az-Harto to Ratbag, openly incredulous, crying, _“Agramol? **Ki?** ”_

Az-Harto’s reply was quiet, dignified, and only three words long. _“Agnakhshza kaira. Bun.”_

This final declaration was met with a long, intensely searching look, but then the worst of the challenge ebbed from the other Olog’s stance and he nodded behind himself, to the pass he’d been guarding so zealously, grumbling something long and vaguely-grudging - but that was a definite hint of a grin lurking at one corner of that wide mouth - before he turned and strode off, leading the way onward into that narrow pass.

*

As Az-Harto rounded the bend and at last, after so many long years away, came within view of the final Pass; when he saw who had been made Guardian, he drew a deep breath as surprise blazed through him. How tall and broad and strong Az-Karhu had grown! Pride burned in his veins as he gloried in the trust the Tribe had shown his twin, when they had made him a Protector of the Pass!

Then Az-Karhu, as ancient tradition demanded, called the Challenge of their Feral Tribe: “What lost Outsider comes now to die at the doorstep of the Untamed, the Olog-hai of the Hidden Heights?”

Az-Harto laughed his joy aloud as he called back the response their traditions deemed due, even as his eager pace sped to a run: “I am neither Outsider nor lost! I will not die! I come to rest with my fellow Untamed Olog-hai of the Hidden Heights!”

Then he and his twin brother met and embraced, brow to brow and body to body, measuring strength of bone and sinew, and finding both matched, they flung arms around each other and clung tight, tighter, tightest, burying faces in necks and drawing deep lungfuls of each others’ scent, relearning and memorising tiny differences, and hearing each other’s voices murmuring words of welcome in their eloquent old tongue, and the years and the leagues that had stood between them were erased as if they had never been, and it was _good._

Then his brother - inquisitive as always, it was ever his fault - caught the first faint whiff of Uruk-flesh and lifted his face from the hollow of Az-Harto’s neck, and he felt those strong arms suddenly stiffening and drawing away, in the same instant as he felt the startled clench of blunt little claws at his shoulder, and heard the anguished gasp of self-excoriation by his left ear.

And the next moment, of course, the long-dreaded accusations began. His brother, no longer his long-lost twin, now Az-Karhu, Guardian of the Gate, Protector of the Pass, stepped hastily back and snapped, “You dare bring an _Outsider,_ an Uruk, to our home!”

There was no other reply to be made to that accusation, but the truth. “He is my blood-brother.”

It at least had the benefit of shocking Az-Karhu momentarily speechless. He settled for waving, wild-eyed, from Ratbag to Az-Harto and spluttering, “Blood-brothers? _You?”_

Az-Harto drew the air of affronted dignity tighter around him, and declared flatly, “He saved my life. Twice.”

Az-Karhu stared searchingly into his eyes, clearly trying to gauge his truthfulness. But after a breathless pause, the suspense broke with a sigh and a shrug of armoured shoulders. He tilted his head onward, down the pass. “Come _home,_ brother,” Az-Karhu groused, but he was still unable to hide the fondness lurking behind the exasperation, “You know as well as I do that the whole Tribe will want to learn _this_ piece of Wanderer’s wisdom.”

*

Of course Az-Karhu’s Challenge-call had echoed loud as a clarion down the pass, as it was meant to do, and the very first syllable had drawn other border sentries racing toward the Gate. But what had started out as a furious charge of reinforcing shock troops, pounding like an avalanche to the immediate defence of their home, changed almost at once to an impetuous stampede of welcome.

For Az-Harto’s answer had reverberated just as plainly, and his kin had long memories: of course they recognised his voice. Of course they remembered the Olog whom their Mystic Ar-Zey had declared the Tribe’s latest Wanderer. Naturally they remembered the strong young Warrior they had watched stride away down the Hidden Pass, to the narrow trail that led beyond the Tribe’s bordering mountains, out into the lowlands where the Small-folk swarmed, bearing the Wanderer’s ancient duty with pride: to go as far as he could, learn as much as he could, about as many things as he could; and then to come home, and share with the Tribe all the knowledge he had learned.

And, all the while he was gone, the Wanderer’s most solemn duty was to share the knowledge of the Tribe’s location with no Outsider. The risks of the wide lowlands were unknown, unknowable. No matter how formidable warriors the Wanderers always were, now and again one would not return. The unspoken understanding hung sadly in the air, every time a Wanderer was named, every time the songs of farewell and fortune on the road were sung: that before any member of the Tribe could be granted that rare honour, the Mystic must see into his soul and know that he can be trusted, that he is truly prepared to die, rather than betray the secret of the Tribe and their hidden home.

*

The Olog-yells that Ratbag could hear coming closer up the narrow pass toward them now sounded almost like shouts of welcome: not at all like that harsh, accusing snap in the guard’s voice when he’d stepped back, or his grumbling of a moment ago. The pounding feet of many more guards rumbled like thunder as they intercepted and surrounded Az-Harto and the first guard, but the two of them didn’t even slow their own running pace. The whole enormous pack of their reception committee simply turned to run with them, and they poured together like a landslide of rolling boulders down the pass toward whatever dubious fate lay ahead.

The massive bodies surrounding them on all sides, the crushing thuds of stampeding feet all around, made any wistful thoughts Ratbag might’ve had of slipping off Az-Harto’s back and making a dash for it, fade away like the mad fantasies they were. With every step they ran on down the road, the din grew more and more deafening. Even as the narrow rock walls of the pass receded on both sides to reveal a wider land beyond, and the echoes grew fainter, more and more Olog-hai joined in from the surrounding countryside, to run beside them, building the pack to a huge, boiling throng.

The whole jubilant crowd of Olog-hai ground to a halt in a wide flat circle of bare rock under the open sky. The sight of the place gave Ratbag a nasty jolt: to him, it looked too much like an Olog-sized fighting pit. ‘Can’t be,’ he thought in an attempt to lift his own spirits, ‘where’s the sand to soak up all the blood?’ But the next moment his heart sank as he realised, ‘Maybe they don’t need it in this cold. They could just pick it off the rock once it froze.’ He scowled and bit his lip-rings, rolling them through the skin in an old nervous habit, as he tried not to wonder anymore about it. He watched the members of the tribe covertly from where he huddled under Az-Harto’s fur wrap, as they seated themselves around the edge of the circle of bare stone. Soon the whole arena was ringed with a wall of massive bodies armoured in layers of leather bristling with tusks and skulls and horns. Inquisitive faces were fixed unwaveringly on the two leaders of the wild rush, standing alone in the centre of the circle, until two other Olog-hai stepped forward to greet them.

The first newcomer was clearly another warrior. ‘Overlord,’ Ratbag thought, ‘got to be, what with all of that lot.’ He was certainly more impressively dressed than the somewhat taller and broader guard, definitely more so than poor scruffy road-stained Az-Harto: positively clattering all over with horns and tusks and fangs and claws and spines and tails and skulls. ‘Bloody wonder that git can even see where we are, with all _that_ by way of a helmet,’ Ratbag smirked mentally. Though any sense of defensive mockery faded away when the second Olog stepped out from behind the larger first one and walked right up to them.

Unlike the overdressed Overlord, and unlike Az-Harto and the gate guard who were both gigantic even for Olog-hai, the newcomer was no warrior in his prime; in fact he was neither particularly tall nor broad for an Olog, though the crown of bones and the pauldrons of skulls he wore went a fair way to make up for the latter two lacks. His leathery hide was a white even starker than the bones, and it glared in the thin dawn light: contrasting with the dark stone of the arena and the gloom of the forest and the rocky slopes of the mountains around them; matching eerily well with the snow-clad peaks gleaming above and beyond.

He spoke, and when he did, it was in a voice that carried strangely well around the arena’s space, though it had a dry, rough tone that crackled like paper-thin ice. But it wasn’t his voice, nor exactly _what_ he said - just a few words of greeting: “Az-Harto! Wanderer and Warrior! Welcome home!” - it was the fact that he’d said them, not in Black Speech, but in the Common Tongue, that widened every eye with surprise. Including Ratbag’s.

An audible ripple of indrawn breaths ran around the ring, but not even a whisper of gossip followed: the watching Olog-hai fell utterly silent, rapt on the pallid speaker, and the Wanderer who now stepped forward to answer. “Ar-Zey! Mystic and Shaman! I thank you for your welcome, and for your courtesy,” Az-Harto replied in slow, grave tones, “in granting me this opportunity to demonstrate to the Tribe the fluency I have learned in the Common Speech of the Small-folk.”

The Mystic beamed fondly up at the towering, tattered Wanderer, the shorter Olog’s face as round and white as a full moon. “I do not speak this tongue to be courteous. You should remember me well enough to know I have little time for courtesy for its own sake,” he replied to Az-Harto in slyly amused tones, as if sharing a private joke, before lifting his head and declaring in ringing tones to the arena at large, “I speak it so I will be understood!”

Indeed, as Ar-Zey continued to speak in Common, a low murmur struck up for the first time all around the ring of watchers, as many Olog-hai of various ages - from adults who couldn’t be too much older than Az-Harto, to stooped and wrinkled ancients - began to translate in a quiet undertone, so their neighbours could keep up.

Ar-Zey repeated slowly and deliberately, as he fixed a narrow-eyed glare on Az-Harto that, though he drew neither blade nor wand, felt suddenly as pointed as a spear tip to the throat, “…so I will be understood, by _all_ present!”

*

Ratbag was the Coward.

That was who he was and what he was.

Simple as that. Indisputable fact of his miserable life, sort of thing.

If he had a problem, he ran _away_ from it, never toward it, ‘cause that’s how cowardice _worked_.

So he knew it wasn’t bravery that, when he heard those words, made his brain just go dead, as if the Hammer had hit him all over again; instead of gibbering inside in terror, at knowing that he was fucking trapped. Like a rat. A rat in a cage, all over again.

(Only, _Ratbag_ had been the one to get himself out of the cage! Him, and the Olog he’d been riding on and hiding on ever since they got here.)

Still, it can’t have been bravery, that just made him think dully, ‘Shrakh. So I’ve been rumbled already. Who the fuck cares? Let’s get this over with.’ and slither out from under Az-Harto’s fur and right off him, the movements of dismounting from his old crony’s back still instinctive from their time together as the Etten.

Ratbag landed deftly behind and to the left of Az-Harto in an at-ready crouch. The tiny twin _pad_ s of his feet hitting the rock were the only sounds in a sudden, terrible silence.

The watching Olog-hai, one and all, were staring wide-eyed and stunned at Az-Harto, and every expression blazed with its own starkly visible variation of shock, betrayal, hurt, devastation.

But the breathless moments passed, and the instant, gory mass retribution that Ratbag had expected to crush him into a smear on the rock like a particularly personal avalanche, continued to fail to do so.

Instead, the Mystic’s rough voice pierced the horrible hush. _“Well?”_ he snapped, “Will at least _one_ of you start explaining yourselves? …Or has a caragor got your tongues?” he added, with a distinct air of ‘If you keep us all waiting much longer, that can always be arranged!’

‘In for a ghûl…’ Ratbag shrugged mentally, quite honestly not giving a toss anymore, and eyed the glaring Mystic and the tusk-bristling Overlord looming behind him up and down: not at all insolently, just idly wondering which of them would be the first to lose their temper and strike the opening blow. “It all started in Núrnen,” he began, neither flippant nor mocking, just calm and careless, as if he were chatting with the Shaman over a cup of grog, “with all those slavers, and the cannibals, and the necromancer, and that cage. Once _Ratbag_ picked the lock and sprung us out of there,” he placed one hand on his chest, indicating himself with the name, and stuck out the other scrawny arm at full length in midair, wiggling his fingers to mime lockpicking, “and then _he_ repaid the favour,” a wave of an arm to the Olog beside him, “by making sure they were in no shape to come after us, then after that, Ratbag and Az-Harto reckoned it just made sense to hang about together.

“Then Ratbag told him he was definitely big and strong enough to wipe that Núrnen Overlord all over his throne room, so he _did!_ Next thing you know, we’ve got Sharkhburz Fortress to run, but in those days _that_ stubborn sod couldn’t be arsed to speak _a single shrakhing word of Common,”_ he scowled up at Az-Harto, who had the grace to look vaguely sheepish for a moment, “and no glob’s ever going to listen too hard to _Ratbag_ for long - he found _that_ out when he made Warchief - so Ratbag knew we’d have to run the place together. So Ratbag thought, two heads are better than one, and came up with the idea of disguising ourselves as a two-headed Olog, with Ratbag up on the big guy’s shoulder wearing a full-face helmet. Ratbag did all the talking, he did all the thumping, and it worked like a charm! So we ran Núrnen together for a while, then…” the accelerating spate of words fell abruptly silent in a harsh jag of breath, as loud as if Ratbag had been gutpunched. His head bowed, his bony shoulders hunched and his whole stance crumpled, his wiry forearms crossing over his scrawny chest.

Az-Harto took up the tale at once, moving to stand beside him, one hand lowering to rest gently in the middle of his comrade’s narrow back. “…an old friend of Ratbag’s came to challenge for the Overlordship, not knowing he was there, because of our disguise…”

Ratbag plonked his arse down on the cold flat rock, drew his knees up to his chest, dropped his forehead to his bony kneecaps, squeezed his eyes shut to stop any betraying damp, and clamped his hands over his ears, willing the sound of the Olog going through the complicated explanations of just who his ‘old friend’ was - what he’d become - to blur into an unintelligible rumble. For the very first time, he wished Az-Harto had stuck to Black Speech.

For the most part, Ratbag succeeded in blocking it all out, letting it all wash over him, not thinking about it, not _remembering._ But as time went on, it was harder to block out the sounds of the reactions that swept now and then over the arena from the rapt audience on all sides: murmurs of surprise, incredulity, wonder, growing ever louder.

At last, the sound of Az-Harto’s voice slowed and fell silent. Into the deep hush that followed came the quiet shuffle of footsteps, drawing nearer, then Ratbag felt the touch of hands - too small and cold to be Az-Harto’s - on his wrists, drawing his palms carefully away from his ears. Ratbag lifted his head and blinked up blearily into Ar-Zey’s round white face. The Mystic was half-crouched, peering closely at Ratbag, eyes gleaming intently as they searched Ratbag’s own. Then he straightened up, without breaking eye contact once, and spoke.

“It is all true,” the Mystic nodded slowly, and there was no trace of question or surprise in his voice, which again carried around the arena with strange clarity despite its quietness, “what our Wanderer tells us. That you saved his life, twice. First, when your thin arms slid between the bars he could not force, and your nimble fingers opened the lock he could not break. Second, when friendship with you was the only motive that persuaded this -” his brow ridges lifted in mute surprise, perhaps even unspoken respect, “- this Undead Man possessed by an Elf Wraith, to go out of his way to free him from another murderous captor. The Tribe has never owed any mere Outsider such a debt of gratitude before. And it never, _ever_ will.”

The Shaman fell silent, and turned to look from Ratbag to Az-Harto, and in all that vast arena, you could have heard the snow fall.

Az-Harto covered the space that separated him and Ratbag in a single stride, leaned down and held out both hands toward him. “I, Az-Harto, Wanderer and Warrior, have declared this already before my twin brother, Az-Karhu, Gate-Guardian and Warrior. Now I will declare it before you, Ar-Zey, Mystic and Shaman; before you, Ur-Gora, Overlord and Warrior; and before all of you, Ferals and Tribe. I would declare it before the snows of Seregost and before the fires of Orodruin and before the throne of Lugbúrz itself!” He grasped both Ratbag’s hands in his own, engulfing them entirely in massive grey fists, but his grip was careful, even as his voice rose to a triumphant shout:

“Here is no Outsider to be slain! Here is no Small-folk to be scorned or pitied or looked down upon! Here is one whose cunning and friendship gave me back my life when I thought it lost, not once but twice! Here is my blood-brother! Here is Ratbag, Feral of the Hidden Heights!”

The roar of approval from a thousand Olog throats, the thunder of stamping feet, hit Ratbag on all sides like a tsunami of sound, but all that shattering noise in his sensitive ears paled into insignificance beside the utter shock of what his old crony was saying, and that it so obviously _wasn’t_ just some fast-talking scam to stop them from killing him: if merely keeping him breathing was all that was important, he could’ve been turned loose anytime between Gorgoroth and here, and left to fend for himself, just as he’d had to do for most of his miserable existence. No, the only possible explanation was that Az-Harto _meant every word._

For the very first time since Gorgoroth, the realisation sank in that Ratbag hadn’t quite lost absolutely everything after all. He did at least have one friend left in the world. He looked up at Az-Harto, and for the first time since that terrible day of loss and heartbreak, he smiled.

*


	8. Ratbag Makes a Name For Himself

*

Even though that thunderous welcome had temporarily raised Ratbag’s spirits, it didn’t change the basic facts. Az-Harto was the Tribe’s Wanderer, just returned from Outside, with a headful of new knowledge about all manner of things, that it was his duty to share with as many Tribe members as possible, as soon as possible. Of course, this meant that those duties took him away from Ratbag at once.

From being almost always by Az-Harto’s side for so many long months, now it seemed Ratbag only ever saw him at a distance: holding court in the great stony arena, lecturing before crowds old and young, great and small, but all alike as rapt and polite listeners as the Tribe had been that first fateful dawn: gathering in echoing conclaves that went on for hours and hours at a stretch, with Az-Harto pacing and gesturing energetically in the centre of the arena, always a fatigue-free fountain of words, his voice rising and falling, as endless and tireless and unintelligible to Ratbag as the hiss and boom and murmur of a river in full flood.

Though Ratbag’s blood-brotherhood with Az-Harto was acknowledged by the whole Tribe, and he was treated with solemn courtesy, as if an honoured guest, he was still the sole member of an alien species, dwarfed by everyone around him. What was worse, not many of the Ologs spoke Common - maybe one in every score or so - and it seemed to be just Ratbag’s rotten luck that it was always the larger and older and more intimidating, Warrior-looking Ologs who did speak it. But then Ratbag learned that for once his lousy luck had bugger-all to do with it.

He learned it from Ur-Gora, the Overlord, of all people. In a Tribe as well concealed from outside threats as theirs, comprised of a people as naturally phlegmatic and philosophical as the Olog-hai, Ratbag quickly noticed - with no small amount of envy - that there was almost no actual work required in Overlording the Tribe’s mountain-fenced stronghold.

All in all, Ur-Gora was the least Overlordly Overlord Ratbag had ever seen in his life. He certainly spent almost no time adjudicating disputes among backstabbing Captains, or listening to whinging Warchiefs, as Ratbag and Az-Harto had spent most of their time when they’d been the Etten (well, Ratbag had done all the actual adjudicating and listening and similar slog: Az-Harto had spent a lot of that time asleep, the cheeky bugger!)

Contrary to the derisive initial impression Ratbag had formed of him, based on the extraordinarily complicated regalia he’d worn when he’d first seen him, Ur-Gora didn’t seem particularly obsessed with the trappings of office. In fact, he liked to amble around the settlement chatting interestedly with anyone who crossed his path, wearing nothing more than a simple kilt, though that was cut from a distinctive silver fur Ratbag was reluctantly impressed to recognise as ice graug pelt.

“My kill!” Ur-Gora declared proudly, noticing Ratbag’s stare at his garb and changing the course of his apparently idle stroll. ‘So the biggest big boss of this whole big lot’s another one I’ll be relying on for future chit-chats. _Splendid._ ’ Ratbag sighed inwardly as the Overlord closed the distance.

“I will tell you the tale.” Ur-Gora sat down with a thump, the better to bring his face on a more comfortable conversational level with Ratbag’s own. “Yes, as you see, it was an ice graug. He was wounded a long time before in battle, maybe against another graug, maybe against many caragors. Whatever the cause, his jaw healed twisted, and his teeth were growing inward, until he was mad with pain. We saw him climbing down the mountainside, toward our lands. Our strongest and wisest Beastmasters climbed to meet him, to leash him with their spells, but none of them could calm him or turn him aside. There was no other choice, so I killed him with one shot. He was my kill alone, so his hide is mine alone. Were it any other way, it would be shamefully vain of me to wear the hide of such a rare Beast,” he added with one of those snorts that express disgust with an eloquence only an Olog can manage. “Such things are usually reserved for ceremonial occasions,” he added in a confiding manner, “like the return of a Wanderer. Then, I am _obliged_ to wear the trophies from the proudest kills of _all_ of the Overlords who have gone before me, not just my own, to prove I am strong enough to be their worthy successor.” He didn’t quite give another of those disgruntled snorts, but he did eyeroll, just a bit.

Ratbag had to admit to himself that even though Ur-Gora was an Overlord, he was maybe starting to like him, just a bit. So he said, “Thanks for the story.” He added, because it never hurt to suck up to the big knobs, “Your Common Speech is damn good, how did you learn it?”

“Like everyone else did. Did you think your blood-brother was the only Wanderer our Tribe has sent Outside?” In reply to Ratbag’s stare, the Overlord huffed amusement and shook his head. “No, no; every now and again, as the need of the Tribe for new knowledge and the eagerness of Warriors to test their mettle against the dangers of Outside both grow, we ask the Shaman to look into their hearts, and we bid the one we can most trust to keep our home secret, a temporary farewell. …I would never have been considered for Overlord,” he finished, quietly, “unless I had first been a Wanderer. To serve the Tribe well as Overlord, one must have firsthand experience of the dangers beyond our borders.”

*

It went without saying that Ratbag had to find some way to pull his weight around there, but at first it was damn difficult for him to even begin to imagine how.

When Az-Harto started his first lecture, that very first morning, to a ring of fascinated onlookers, Ratbag listened in for a while, with Ar-Zey kindly murmuring a translation to him; but it didn’t take Ratbag long to realise it was just some deadly dull technical details about farming, gathered from watching some Tark Outcasts the previous Núrnen Overlord had enslaved, who’d apparently kept themselves fed by cultivating odd patches of ground on the sly. Ratbag gave himself a good scratch all over to shake off the boredom-induced drowsiness, thanked Ar-Zey politely for the translation, and snuck off.

He struck out into the dark conifer forest fringing the wide flat circle of bare stone that Ratbag had come to think of as an arena - where Az-Harto was still holding a ring of listeners spellbound - and headed straight for the nearest wall of stone, and the subtlest suggestion of shadow he thought he could see, in a crack where the cliff face met the earth. He picked his way with painstaking care, not knowing the safe path, wary of the snow piled in deceptive drifts here and there beneath the trees, breathing deep of the sweet fragrance of resin, strange to senses so soon arrived from the smog and stink of Gorgoroth.

Now and again he would look up: waving and smiling his tentative, close-lipped approximation of a smile whenever he saw someone else walking through the woods, and generally feeling lost and aimless and extremely small and insignificant, like a ghûl among graugs.

The vague apprehension behind his grin eased into a huff of relief when at last the latest Olog he waved to replied in Common, rather than merely with a gravely courteous nod and the repetition of his name, often accompanied by the word _Agormolun_ , which sounded like some sort of title. When Ratbag asked his latest acquaintance, Ur-Ruzad, about the title, he confirmed that it simply meant they were acknowledging him as ‘one’s blood-brother’ as opposed to claiming he was ‘ _their_ blood-brother’, which would of course be unforgivably rude to both him and Az-Harto.

When Ratbag and Ur-Ruzad, who had been walking through the forest in the same direction as Ratbag and had caught up with him, arrived together at the base of the mountain wall, the shadow in the cliff wall that Ratbag had been aiming for all this time did of course turn out to be the mouth of a cave. As Ratbag boggled around himself in amazement at the chamber beyond, easily vast enough to hold five of the Núrnen throne room, Ur-Ruzad explained that the stone was limestone that had been hollowed into an extensive maze of caverns large and small by the rush of ancient waters, and it was here that almost all of the Tribe made their homes: protected from the worst of the cold, and hidden from the outside world.

The Olog paused in his explanation, turned to take in Ratbag’s expression, still wide-eyed and staring around at the ceiling, bristling with stalactites and half-lost in shadow far overhead. A smile softened his craggy features. “This is our home. Now it is yours. Welcome to the heart of _Kirgkirzadkil_ , the Hidden Lands beyond the Perilous Pass.”

‘Jaw-cracker of a name, that,’ Ratbag thought, drawing a long breath as he tried to think of a way to reply. His concave belly picked that particular moment to growl audibly, and he smirked and spread his palms in a ‘what can you do?’ shrug. “Place this size, there’s got to be a pantry round here somewhere, yeah?”

Ur-Ruzad chuckled. “To Wander is to hunger, yes?” He led Ratbag toward one of the multitude of smaller arches fringing the entry hall. Ratbag followed, trying his best along the way to decide whether whatever it was he was scenting, under the dominant notes of wet stone and the more familiar sun-on-sand sharpness of Olog hide, was edible or not.

The food turned out to be a shock to poor travel-worn Ratbag. During the long and dreary trudge here, in the very few moments that he’d actually thought about what Az-Harto had meant by those terse words: “I have kin in the mountains… I have been gone too long. I return now. I will be welcomed.” especially that last statement, well, a lavish welcome-home _feast_ had definitely featured prominently in Ratbag’s perpetually-famished fantasies.

Ur-Ruzad opened a drum in what was apparently a communal kitchen, and handed Ratbag a large slab of something black and leathery that looked like heavily dried graug jerky. That would’ve been fine - tough as boots, yeah, bit of a workout for the jaws, but meat was meat and he’d certainly wrestled worse down his gullet - but the reek was as off-putting as old Uzgûb the Shrakh-Collector’s hobby.

Ratbag’s ears went flat to his skull in instinctive reflex - he hoped Ur-Ruzad didn’t know enough Uruk body language to be offended - and he held his breath and clamped his teeth deep in the leathery stuff, sawing them side to side. When that didn’t work, he tightened his neck muscles and his fists and tugged hard, as he kept grimly gnawing. At last the chunk in his mouth broke off, and he swallowed at once, fighting his rising gorge down and hoping it wouldn’t bounce right back up like a bloody ball.

“You like?” Ur-Ruzad grinned encouragingly.

“Wh-hat _is_ that?” Ratbag gasped, eyes and mouth watering as he set the rest of the slab gingerly down. He swallowed saliva hastily, hoping it’d wash the taste away. Dry, it hadn’t been totally unbearable, but with a bit of moisture it was even worse than that time with the ghûls, the mudslide and the cesspit!

“Dried fungus. The black fungus is our staple crop; it keeps the whole Tribe well fed. We grow that and many other types of fungus in the largest caverns, and in the forest, for variety: blue mushrooms and red and brown. Green lichens and grey.” Ur-Ruzad’s broad chest swelled even further with what was patently a farmer’s pride in his own handiwork. “But the black fungus is everyone’s favourite: very good for you, very nutritious. It makes even small Olog-hai grow big and strong.” The grin widened.

Ratbag hmphed at Ur-Ruzad, who with that last comment was obviously starting to take the piss. It might’ve been meant in harmless fun, it might not have; it was too bloody hard to tell. “Reckon they’d want to gnaw something good’n’gory right off the bone to do that,” Ratbag grumbled resentfully under his breath, one palm rubbing his hollow belly, which was still roiling with hunger, and now with queasiness as well.

But the Olog’s hearing was sharper than Ratbag credited. Ur-Ruzad huffed, shocked, “The Tribe _reveres_ the Beasts: the ghûl, the caragor, the graug, the drake; we _Master_ them, so we need not slay them; we take what we need from their bodies, only after they need them no more. Never the flesh; we are not Beasts, to think so is hubris, and meat we do not need. I speak your tongue; like your blood-brother, I was once a Wanderer. I have seen the lowlander Olog-hai, who have forgotten their folk, forgotten themselves; who are addicted to Small-folk pleasures, Small-folk food; who devour the flesh, in their greed. It softens their bellies, it softens their brains!” Ur-Ruzad snorted contempt, his normally amiable mouth downturned in a grimace of disgust, and fell silent.

“Well, Ratbag’s Feral, and Ratbag’s Tribe, but he’s no Olog, and he can’t live on nothing but…” shrakh, “…plants! Ratbag _needs meat!”_ Maybe it was laying it on a little thick, but start as you mean to go on, right? Ratbag was hungry and fed up, when all he’d wanted was to be _fed!_

Ur-Ruzad gave Ratbag a deeply worried look, and rummaged among barrels and drums in the kitchen for some time, before reluctantly opening a tall container made of the sawn-off end of a graug femur that looked to have been chewed and clawed on all sides by many eager caragor kits, or perhaps ghûls. Reaching down into the depths of the hollow bone, Ur-Ruzad came up with a few strips of dried smoked fish. Though Ur-Ruzad offered them with an expression of extreme dubiousness, Ratbag grabbed them hastily and downed them in a few hungry bites. ‘No sodding wonder the first thing they all wanted to hear about was _farming_ ,’ he grumbled inwardly as he ripped apart the last stiffly salted morsel, ‘What’s the point of going round covered in fangs and horns and claws and such, if all you ever eat are toadstools that taste like a toad’s tool?’

At least it settled the question of what Ratbag was going to do with himself.

He knew for a fact he wasn’t just going to settle for being Ratbag, Az-Harto’s weird little non-Olog non-horrible-fungus-eating blood-brother.

He was going to be Ratbag the Hunter!

…No, there was probably at least one Olog in the Tribe who did some sort of hunting too, even if they _were_ mad enough not to eat the meat.

Ratbag the Devourer Of His Own Damn Kills!

…No, too bloody long. Besides, he knew he couldn’t just live hand-to-mouth, he had to salt and smoke the surplus, store it for winter when hunting would be hardest.

Ratbag the Meat Hoarder!

*


	9. Ratbag Bags Rats (and Has Baggage)

*

When Ratbag left the caves a little while later, he scanned the ground beneath the trees with new eyes, looking now not for safe footing but for tracks. It didn’t take long to spot them either: the snow made the slightest mark stand out with weird clarity. There were a lot of them too, and they weren’t being cautious: not exactly surprising, if the Ologs weren’t interested in them.

Ratbag pulled a few slender, straight lower branches, no more than his arm’s length each, from the nearest trees. In a few swift, whittling strokes of the jagged knife he kept always at his belt, he stripped them of greenery and was left with a fistful of slim, minimalist spears. Ratbag hefted the spears, and his grin was every bit as sharp as their tips. 

Hunting time!

*

“Hey, Ur-Ruzad!” Ratbag called out as he strode into the entry hall well after nightfall, tired and dirty and with pine needles in his hair, and for once in rare triumphant spirits. Slung over his shoulder was a long green branch and dangling from every twig were pairs of Morgul rats tied together by the tails, eighteen of them, big buggers too! He’d already skinned and gutted them and used the less appetising bits to bait the traps and snares that he’d set out; he’d do a nice leisurely tour and check them tomorrow morning. “There enough room for today’s hunt in your smokehouse? Or um, smoke cave?”

Eyes went wide all over the huge cavern, but if there were aghast or amused faces at Ratbag’s haul, they were carefully hidden.

When Ur-Ruzad quickly offered to set up a separate smoke cave for his own private use, Ratbag accepted just as fast, as eager to keep the smell of fungus out of his meat, as the Ologs no doubt were to keep the smell of meat out of their fungus. Problems solved all round!

“Here,” Ratbag handed a tall stack of rat skins to Ur-Ruzad; judging by the layers of leather armour on everyone, they definitely knew how to tan hides. “I hunt because I need the meat. Everything else from my kills goes to anyone in the Tribe who needs it. I’ll keep ‘em coming. It’s just my way of saying thanks to everyone for the warm welcome.” As Ur-Ruzad translated for the benefit of the rest of the hall, Ratbag waved, then as murmurs of reaction rose from everyone, he nodded, waved again, and headed out of the hall, looking for an out-of-the-way spot to rest.

*

But Ratbag found, after a few nights spent curling up in this or that quiet and apparently cosy little cave, that living underground like most of the Ologs just… didn’t really agree with him. Maybe it was the pervasive humidity, or the faint whiff of fungus that he’d catch now and then lurking under all the other scents, or the memories of a few too many past run-ins with ghûls, which always nested in caves, or the sense of countless tons of rock poised above him, behind all those spear-like stalactites, just waiting to drop on his head when he least expected it.

But most likely, Ratbag thought it was because, no matter how he tried to think of this or that little cave they offered as his ‘home’, when it came right down to it all those caves still felt like the small, damp, stone-walled dungeon cells that were dug into the ground of just about every permanent Orc camp: the ones he always got chucked into, when he was in really deep shrakh.

Or - and this was the reason he didn’t even want to _think_ about - because when he was asleep, and there was nothing else to distract him, he couldn’t help but _remember_ , and there were ears all around him amid stone that carried echoes: ears that would hear him, when he startled awake too late in the midst of groaning out a low, animal cry of loss.

***

It was when they’d been back in Udûn together, Talion and him. The weather had been oppressively hot for days, and nightfall had done little to ease the heat. As they gazed down into the Uruk camp from the lookout tower whose half-dozing sentry Talion had taken out with a single arrow, the drunken singing from below had confirmed their hopes: the Uruks had taken the edge off their thirst - and their alertness - in the most obvious manner.

Indeed, at first, everything had gone according to plan. Talion had crept right into the heart of the camp without being seen. Ratbag had hung back at the lookout tower, peering down onto the camp, fearing that his own combat skills were so far below Talion’s that he would be more of a liability than an asset in any fight.

But another Uruk-hai gang had stolen into the camp from the far end, perhaps also lured by the din of drunken revels. Whatever the reason, Talion, instead of closing in on a steady, stealthy assassination of the camp’s Captain and a raid of all his stores and records, was suddenly caught in the midst of a melee maelstrom: two Captains and their combined bodyguards and soldiers, all in a milling, screaming, half-drunken, half-crazed, all-bloodthirsty tangle of bodies.

Both Captains and their forces forgot their differences the moment Talion was spotted, and concentrated their attacks on him at once. Even then Talion was a legend in Mordor, and for good reason. Though both Captains were big, burly Uruk-hai, brutally expert killers, had butchered their way to the top of their respective gangs, still Talion could have duelled them one-on-one without too much trouble; could have cut a gory swath through each individual gang.

But two Captains simultaneously, as well as all the grunts from both gangs?

It was agonising for Ratbag to watch. Talion was trapped in a blade-bristling ring of Uruk-hai, like a cornered fox surrounded by hounds baying for blood. The two Captains were attacking him mercilessly from either side, but he was still moving freely, dodging, parrying, striking in a frantic blur, so not even the Captains had yet managed to land any crippling blows. Still, the startling, alien red of Tark blood spread ever farther from many many cuts, and every time Talion lashed out with his Hammer-scarred left hand in a desperate attempt to regain energy from this grunt or that, his grip was broken almost at once in the mad melee, much too soon to draw any useful amount. To Ratbag’s keenly observant eye - longtime admirer that he was of Talion’s combat style - the Man’s movements lacked most of their usual fluid, focused power; to him they had a jaggedness that screamed of ebbing stamina, rising panic, time running out.

Slowly, but surely, they were wearing Talion down! If he didn’t finish both Captains, and soon, he was doomed! Ratbag shuddered all over as he stared down from the lookout tower, flattening his ears and baring his fangs in a miserable grimace at the mere thought of… of having to watch… _that…_ and then slinking off all alone afterwards, back to the nearest tower, there to skulk at its base, holding sleepless vigil, staring up into the chamber open to the four winds at the tower’s peak, until at last the miracle happened, and Talion _returned_ to him: descending from the tower’s apex in a silver blur like rain reviving the desert - _alive_ and healed and just his same wonderful self - and Ratbag remembered how to breathe again.

Without warning, mid-dodge Talion lost his footing on a slick of gore and went down on one knee. Both Captains lunged instantly for the kill: Talion’s original assassination target standing before him and raising his jagged machete high; the invading Captain standing behind him and flinging out poisoned chain-whips to entangle him.

Talion bowed his bloodied head, his broad shoulders curled inward; his whole posture seemed hunched, defeated, flinching in anticipation of their killing blows.

Ratbag’s heart leapt into his throat, and time itself seemed to grind to a halt.

But then in a blinding blur of speed Talion exploded upward, bounding over the head of the Captain in front of him, landing behind his back. The envenomed chains the other Captain had thrown wrapped around the blade-wielding Uruk instead, who hacked at the links and howled, collapsing as the corrosive green toxin ate into his flesh.

The chain-wielding Captain snarled frustration, hauling at the hafts of the poisoned chain-whips with all his might, throwing all his weight behind the heave. But the bulk of the huge collapsed Captain weighed down the links, delaying his next lash so that it was just a fraction too late. The glare of thwarted malice on the Captain’s face, as Talion’s next desperate strike landed true while his poison-wet lash flicked wide, was a work of art as far as Ratbag was concerned.

Yowls of terror erupted far and wide: most of the grunts from both Captains’ gangs fled immediately, tripping over their own feet in blind panic as they sprinted out of the camp. Many of those that remained fell into individual brawls, perhaps blaming members of the other side for the death of their respective Captain, or perhaps they simply remembered their original mission, while the very few that were still suicidal enough to eye Talion as an adversary were doing so warily and hanging well back, at least for the moment.

Talion seized the opportunity at once, and made for the quickest way out of the camp. To Ratbag’s eye, he was moving with haste, but also with the greatest care to avoid disclosing just how exhausted he was: by blood loss, and by the unusually long and intense combat against so very many foes. Because Talion knew, just as well as Ratbag did, that to show weakness was a fatal mistake, and the vivid red and sweet scent of that much Tark blood was sign enough already. He had to pretend that even that much lost blood was no problem at all to the mythical Gravewalker.

Talion’s path into the camp had led him from the lookout tower where Ratbag had been waiting and watching all this time, so naturally his path out of it led him back toward that same tower.

Talion was almost beneath the tower, had almost reached the edge of the camp and safety, when they both heard a lone voice, calling out in a weirdly dulcet singsong, from the darkness only just beyond.

“Ohhh, Taaa-liii-onnn…”

Ratbag’s eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat. In all the battles they’d faced together, their enemies had always used titles like Gravewalker, or insults if they were calling Talion out. Despite the legendary fame the Ranger had justly earned, no foe had ever dared to use Talion’s name before, much less croon it like that!

A lone Orc cloaked and hooded in black separated himself from the shadows, slinking toward Talion as confidently as a dire caragor facing a ghûl separated from its pack.

Talion halted at bay short of the tower, locking himself into a stock-still stance, in a last-ditch effort to conserve the final dregs of his failing energy.

Ratbag snarled mutely, impotently, at the latest approaching threat. He’d spent all night stuck here, hanging back out of fear of his own fucking uselessness in a fight, watching and waiting and worrying himself into a lather of nervous sweat, fearing the worst and helpless to help as Talion fought himself to a standstill, and despite incredible odds Talion had triumphed. Only now to get ambushed by _this_ prick!

As the Orc stalked nearer, beaming, his glittering gaze fixed thirstily on Talion’s face, Ratbag made out the charcoal smeared over his skin that had camouflaged him in the night, the throwing knives strapped to all his limbs, a crossbow of a complicated design he’d never even seen before trained unwaveringly on Talion, and an icicle of dread traced his spine. ‘An Assassin! Shrakh! Once those bastards get the drop on you like this, you’re fucked! No matter _how_ good you are, you’ve got no chance!’

As the Assassin prowled closer, ever closer to Talion, and by extension to Ratbag in the lookout tower, his expression grew clearer and clearer: his eyes were fixated on Talion with feverish intensity and sharp fangs were bared in an avid, hungry smile. He licked his lips, stalking closer still until he was standing below the tower, and then that sickening, cloying croon rose again into the hot night:

“They told me about you, but they didn’t mention your _beauty_. No sir, they did not! You’re _mine_ now, love. For ever, and ever, and ever…”

Ratbag jumped.

Not even a moment to pause for breath, for thought; to remember how high the lookout tower was, how tall the ladder had been to climb; how fondly envious he’d been of Talion’s ability to fly there with the ghostly arrow he’d used to kill the sentry.

No second-guessing his fighting abilities; no reminding himself he had only a dagger.

No time, no inclination for any of that shrakh.

No, it wasn’t even a jump. It was the pounce of a ravening predator, an enraged berserker.

Perhaps it was pure luck that Ratbag leapt silently and landed with both feet square on the back of the Assassin’s neck, driving the Orc - lightly-built, like most crossbow specialists - straight into the ground, with Ratbag’s full weight and all the momentum of his fall right on the joint where spine met skull.

Ratbag grunted and rolled, the wind knocked out of him by the landing, but he bounced up at once and hurled himself on the dark huddle of cloak and crossbow in a mad blur, stabbing furiously with his right hand as he snatched a fistful of the throwing knives with his left, kicking and screaming like a creature possessed, punctuating each word with alternating stabs and punches with a blade jutting between each finger, thudding into the inert pile of black cloth beneath him over and over like a caragor’s claws. “YOU! DON’T!! TALK!!! T’HIM! LIKE!! THAT!!! YOU! FUCKIN’!! SHRAKH!!! FUCK! OFF!! N’DIE!!! **_HE’S!!! MINE!!!”_**

“Ratbag!” No other voice could have snapped him out of his fit. As it was, the sight of Talion, hurrying over as fast as his weariness and his many wounds - only barely starting to close - would let him, stilled Ratbag’s hands and he staggered away from the body, let Talion turn it over with one toe, then nod confirmation. “You broke his neck right away! Very well done! But what about _you?”_ Talion lowered his head to peer at Ratbag with honest concern so clear in every line of his expression, even through the mask of blood and weariness, “You didn’t hurt yourself, did you? Jumping from that tower? That’s quite a leap!”

As if awakened by Talion’s question, aches sprang to life all along Ratbag’s leg joints and spine, but he was buggered if he’d be mentioning them. “Pshh,” he replied, waving one hand dismissively, then realising he still had a handful of throwing knives, he dropped them with a clatter. “You’re the one with all the wounds, Ranger,” he reminded the stubborn sod solicitously, “Now c’mon, let’s put some more space between us and that camp, before those globs find their bollocks and decide to come after us.”

It took Talion a day of slower than usual walking and ample doses of healing herbs, for his body to recoup the blood loss and heal the last scars from the many sword cuts and superficial arrow wounds he’d taken in that battle. And if Ratbag snuck some scraps and twigs of the herbs for himself, only after he made sure that Talion had taken more than enough of the better-tasting herbs, well, who was to know?

Maybe the unusually long, hard battle, or perhaps the extreme loss of blood - the poor Man really had been almost as white as the Elf, and wavering quite badly on his feet as they’d started to walk away from the camp - had unusual aftereffects, that persisted even after the last pink lines of scars faded away a bit past noon.

Because they were travelling more slowly than usual, they were keeping closer together, rather than either of them needing to scout ahead. This meant Ratbag had the leisure to notice things too, sooner than he might’ve otherwise done. Because really, by mid-afternoon Ratbag was sure of it: Talion was behaving just a tiny bit oddly. Oh, nothing _bad_ , nothing to really worry about.

Ratbag just wasn’t sure what to make of the way Talion kept _looking_ at him.

It wasn’t quite the way Talion usually looked at him. Sometimes he’d keep flicking these little, sidelong glances, that - here was the odd thing - he’d _stop_ whenever Ratbag happened to glance his way. Or, the other thing Talion would do was outright _stare_ at Ratbag, for all the world as if Ratbag might’ve actually been something interesting to look at! Only, when Talion was doing that, it was as if he’d gone somewhere else completely in his head, and then Ratbag had to raise his voice or wave or something, to even get his attention!

Odd. Maybe poor Talion’s head just had a bit more healing to do, what with all that lost blood and such. After all, what did Ratbag know about brains?

After sundown they found a hollow sheltered by some bushes and stopped for the night. Talion hadn’t said anything - he never did - but Ratbag could tell by the sag of his shoulders that he was still weary, even though there was no visible trace of his injuries by then. So Ratbag offered to take first watch, and for once it took less arguing than usual to get the self-sacrificing Ranger to accept even that small kindness.

Ratbag left Talion setting out his bedroll in the midst of the concealing thicket of bushes, and went to take up watch outside, his back to the screening branches. He’d had every intention of keeping an honest watch out there all night long, of letting the poor Man get as much uninterrupted sleep as he possibly could, and that was exactly what he’d done.

Until he caught that faint, breathless whimper, right on the very edge of his sensitive hearing. His ears twitched instinctively, whipping his whole head round as if yanked by an imperious fist clamped on his chin; he opened his mouth and inhaled slow and deep, scenting and tasting the air as his pupils dilated even further, all his senses jumping to maximum alert.

‘Talion!’ Ratbag had no clue how anything could have snuck past him, but he didn’t waste time thinking about it. Raising the dagger he’d been holding all this time, he bared his fangs in a mute snarl as he insinuated his thin body in a serpentine, silent wriggle between the bushes and crept closer to attack whatever was menacing his… his friend.

He was almost through the bushes, gathering himself for a murderous leap when he caught the first breath of that _scent_. The rich fleshy musk of arousal, heady with pheromones, fresh and urgent and hot and human and utterly male and all _Talion._ Delicious! Ratbag’s mouth filled instantly with thick saliva and he went dizzy with an intense wave of desire and a burning need to _see_. He crawled closer, though his knees felt weak, and his knob twitched and throbbed in his breeches, growing harder by the second. With the utmost care to make no sound, he peered through a gap in the leaves.

There Talion was, and oh, what a sight he was! He was lying on his back on the open bedroll, side-on to Ratbag, and after the first guilty glance at Talion’s face Ratbag relaxed minutely. Talion’s eyes were closed tight in rare inattention: he was, for once, lost in concentrating on the sensations he was giving himself. His head was thrown back, showing the strange red flush of arousal that glowed not only in his face but all the way down his stubbled throat. He was clad only in his torn linen undershirt and braies, and even those were in unprecedented disarray; pulled up and pushed down to reveal a broad chest, beautifully muscled, lightly dusted with hair, and small brown nipples tightened to peaks. One hand strayed to and fro across his chest, tugging and tweaking his nipples, as his other hand stroked, still slow and teasing so far, up and down the veined shaft of his cock, jutting tall and thick and luscious above the ripe bulge of his balls, all framed by a patch of dark hair and the hastily shoved down crotch of his braies.

Ratbag felt lightning-struck with yearning for Talion, usually so quiet and reserved, lying sprawled before him now absorbed in his arousal, so open and sensual and infinitely erotic; he felt blindsided and stupefied by the sheer blazing intensity of his desire. Wild-eyed and open-mouthed in a silent pant of utter desperation, Ratbag dropped his knife and shoved both hands straight down his breeches, clutching his aching cock in a last-ditch attempt to stop himself from emptying his bollocks in an instant explosion of need. Every muscle in his limbs tightened as he shuddered all over with the instinctive drive to close the distance between their bodies in a single caragor-hungry bound.

Until a ghostly voice whispering right into his ear stopped Ratbag as cold and dead as a tombstone to the head. “Stop snuffling and slobbering after him, you filthy beast!” The disdainful hiss was as effective at killing the mood as being thrown into an icy lake; the hackles sprang up instantly all along Ratbag’s spine, and he bared his fangs and flattened his ears in instinctive, futile defiance. “You will _never_ get the chance to degrade Talion with your twisted, unnatural lusts!” A faint shimmer in the corner of Ratbag’s eye, like the glow on swamp gas, formed itself for a moment into a contemptuously sneering face, and was gone. The voice returned, in Ratbag’s other ear; he flinched uselessly away from its seething disgust, “Talion will _never be yours_ to pervert, to corrupt! _He is mine, and he will only ever be mine!”_ Having speared that last icicle of torment straight into Ratbag’s brain, the vicious voice fell triumphantly silent.

Leaving Ratbag alone and beaten, to crawl on his belly back out of the bushes and stand the rest of the night’s watch, well out of earshot and scent of where Talion presumably, eventually, slept.

***


	10. Ratbag Packs His Bag

*

So it was an easy decision for Ratbag to pack.

All he had to do was roll up the caragor fur he’d scrounged on his first night here. No more than a scrap for an Olog, it was big enough to be a blanket for him: all he needed between his back and the stone that would otherwise have slowly leeched the warmth from his bones, in the few hours’ fitful nap that was all he usually managed.

It was slightly less easy to explain to the Ologs what he planned to do.

When he mentioned it to Ur-Ruzad on his way out of the cave, he found himself seized by the hand and frogmarched through the forest straight to the arena, where sure enough, Az-Harto was pacing back and forth, lecturing busily to yet another group of Olog-hai, this one looking like it was mostly made up of warriors. Ur-Ruzad strode right up to Az-Harto and whispered something rapidly in his ear. Az-Harto turned and declared something apologetic but firm-sounding to his audience, who gathered themselves to their feet and ambled away, but not without casting curious or interested or vaguely irritable glances at Ratbag as they went past.

Ratbag’s old crony held his peace until the two of them were out of earshot of the others, then Az-Harto said, “You should tell Ur-Gora and Ar-Zey first!”

When Ratbag fired a narrow-eyed glare up at him and drew a long slow breath that straightened his spine and expanded his scrawny chest until the bones of his armour creaked - signs Az-Harto knew all too well foretold a rant of ear-splitting proportions - he added quickly in much milder tones, “Don’t you think that, as Overlord and Shaman of _our_ Tribe,” he laid the most delicate stress on that crucial word, “they should know something about your intended living arrangements?”

Ratbag’s prickly-straight stance eased and he muttered, “S’pose,” and slouched after Az-Harto as he led the way to the caves, through the vast entry hall and into the smaller, vaulted cavern, its walls smoothed to a mirror gleam that showcased the beauty of the stone’s layered textures, which had served as a throne-room for generations of Overlords. There, or more precisely in a private side-chamber off the main throne-room, they found Ur-Gora sitting with Ar-Zey and four other Olog-hai around a six-sided table. Some sort of game was in progress, judging by the elaborately carved and dyed bone tiles and figurines, and the marbles of six different colours that were placed in various patterns all over the table’s inlaid surface, and the hubbub of good-natured grumbles and chuckles, which fell quiet when Az-Harto and Ratbag entered.

Ratbag cleared his throat. Az-Harto’s encouraging nudge in his back might’ve been subtle for an Olog, but it was enough to skid his whole stringy body forward a couple of inches across the floor; the scrape of his sandals was loud in the hush. “Er, just thought you should know, I won’t be staying anymore in the caves with the others. I have to go out and ah, hunt. For my own food. It’s the _meat, I need it to survive!”_ Try as Ratbag might, he couldn’t keep the frantic, pleading note out of his voice.

As the ensuing silence went on and on, and nobody’s expression changed at all, what usually happened in these situations - when Ratbag was up to his neck in shrakh - happened yet again: his mouth took over and just kept on moving of its own accord, and he found himself listening from an appalled distance as he kept digging himself deeper and deeper with every word. “And sooner or later the rats a day’s walk from the caves will wise up and move, see, or else I’ll hunt ‘em out, and by then I’ll want a change anyway, and there’s fish, right, Ur-Ruzad gave me fish, where there’s a valley there’s gotta be a stream, I’ll go there and fish for a while, and set traps, and string nets in the upper branches for hellhawks, and look for nests while I’m up there, yeah, eggs’d be splendid for a change, and anyway I can look after myself, always have, always will, I can doss down anywhere, I’ve got myself a nice blanket now, proper caragor fur and all, thanks for that, and the valley’s more or less peaceful, and I’ll be _fine!”_ With that final half-panicky shriek, Ratbag finally managed to rein in his rampaging tongue, and panting into the silence that followed, flicked a wild-eyed stare from face to face around the table.

“Good idea,” said Ur-Gora the Overlord, mild as milk.

“Good luck,” added Ar-Zey the Shaman, with one of those twinkling grins that always left Ratbag wondering if there might be anything ever-so-slightly sly behind all that sunniness.

 _“Not_ that anyone thinks you need it,” concluded Az-Harto firmly, as he placed one hand on the bony point of Ratbag’s shoulder, nodded politely to the group of worthies, and steered Ratbag out.

*

‘The Tribe are a damn smart lot,’ Ratbag mused one pale dawn a few months later, as he crouched motionless as a gargoyle on a stony outcrop, among the cliffs of the Seregost mountains that fenced the Tribe’s narrow, twisting valley from the world. Bathed in the growing light, the snow-clad peaks above him gleamed with a fleeting, pearl-pink blush, while the valley below was still plunged deep in shadow. ‘Not much prey down there, what with the snow most of the year and all. Nowhere near enough to feed a thousand Ologs. They’d’ve had to leave or starve, if they hadn’t thought of that fungus.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Poor bastards.’

A small grin crept onto his face. ‘Least there’s enough to let me live up to my title,’ Ratbag the Meat Hoarder thought with an unfamiliar lifting of spirits.

Then the hellhawk he’d been waiting for crawled out of its hole in the cliff-face opposite, and Ratbag shot it before it could take off.

The climb up the cliff for the hellhawk was a bit tricky - even though he kicked off the new snow boots he’d made so his clawed toes would be free, his grip slipped twice - but the reward was sweet: not just the hellhawk itself, rich meat, useful bones and some really fine leather, but a nest with eight big eggs. He stashed the lot in the sack on his back and hummed all the while as he made the descent.

*

Ratbag, as an Uruk fresh out of the vats like any other, had been bred for an almost-certainly-short life, spent nowhere but the battlefield or the barracks, eating nothing but bloody bland soldiers’ rations (whatever shrakh _they_ were made of: sludge leftover from the vats, according to cynical rumour; whatever it was, was probably something every bit as ghastly as that fungus, if not worse!)

On his own account, he never would’ve really known how to track and stalk and hunt his own prey; wouldn’t have known how to skin or gut or cook it once it was killed, or even how to properly build a good fire to cook it on; wouldn’t have had a single sodding clue how to make or set the different types of snares, or how to knot nets, or make fish hooks, or how to even fish for that matter; in short, right now he would have been well and truly fucked.

He knew that he owed his current life - as a hunter-at-large, roaming in the wild, fending for himself, slave to absolutely no-one - not only to Az-Harto who had brought him here.

He owed his life at least as much, if not more, to the Ranger he’d named his Olog friend to honour.

He owed this life to Talion’s quiet, patient teachings: over weeks and months and years, by example and by deliberate, detailed instruction. Over time, it had begun to feel to Ratbag as though Talion was treating him as more than an annoying hanger-on, an obligation: it had felt more and more like Talion was taking him under his wing. Like he was becoming Talion’s apprentice, almost like a trainee Ranger himself. Almost, Ratbag could dream, like something even closer…

***


	11. Under the Skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're thrilled to share another amazing piece of cover art, this time by **[humblenug](https://humblenug.tumblr.com/post/178935441168/the-drawing-for-no-war-should-be-fought-alone-by)!**  
>   
> 

***

“Good, that’s it, you’ve got it!” Talion smiled encouragingly as Ratbag strained and heaved and finally finished peeling back the hide from the ex-caragor that had sprung out of the thick Núrnen undergrowth in the suicidal delusion that Talion was easy prey. “Perfect job, all in one piece!”

Ratbag beamed up at the Ranger, suddenly not even minding the ache in his arms and back from all the pulling and hauling involved in stripping the heavy hide off the carcass. Once, he’d used to feel wary surprise, at the way even the smallest expression of the Man’s regard always kindled a funny warm feeling somewhere deep in his chest; but now he never questioned it, just basked in the pleasure of it, like drying himself off after rain, by the luxury of a fire.

“This hide will make good leather, once we’ve finished with it. The next step is to scrape all the fat from the inside.” Talion took the hide from Ratbag and spread it out flat on the grass, hair side down.

Ratbag nodded and drew his dagger, the wickedly jagged blade that was his most prized possession, a trophy from the first Uruk he’d ever killed: a sadistic thug of a warden twice his size who’d just been tormenting him while he’d been a helpless prisoner. The facts that Ratbag had only got the drop on the sadistic Uruk and knocked him out by landing on his head when Talion had cut him down from a high gibbet; that Ratbag had nicked this blade from the Uruk while he was out cold; and that Ratbag had stabbed the Uruk as soon as he’d started to come to? Details, mere details, not even worth mentioning; so of course Ratbag never did.

“Here, use mine; the straight edges won’t rake holes in the skin like those serrations would.” And with no more warning than that, Talion actually drew and held out toward Ratbag his own dagger. He was even handling it courteously, extending the hilt toward Ratbag, which meant he was holding it by the broken end of the blade. The blade that had been _broken when Talion’s only son had been killed._

Talion had even told the facts to Ratbag, at least just the faintest outlines of the catastrophe at the Black Gate: murmured them to him late one starry night, over the low coals of the campfire and the slow, dragging scrape of Talion’s whetstone over that very blade. Talion hadn’t gone into any details, and pressing him for any was the last thing in the world Ratbag wanted to do. He felt profoundly touched, deeply honoured that Talion had even thought to mention a single word of such a personal tragedy to anyone like him.

What had made that night just a tiny bit more precious to Ratbag, was the fact that not once had Celebrimbor made his presence known. He’d probably floated off somewhere to stew in his own bile over the mere fact that Talion had chosen to share something so very private with Ratbag. ‘And good riddance too!’ Ratbag had thought at the time.

So he knew something about the painful past of the broken sword that Talion wielded now as a dagger. Talion had confirmed that he kept it as a memento of his murdered son, though as past events had shown, he certainly _hadn’t_ confirmed Celebrimbor’s vicious lie to Ratbag that he’d punish the Orc just for touching it, even in self-defence!

Ratbag even knew the name that it went by now; knew the five Elf-letters etched into its crossguard spelled out _Acharn,_ the Elf-word for _Revenge:_ the revenge Talion meant to extract in blood from the Hammer, the Tower, and the Black Hand; the revenge he had vowed to take on Sauron himself.

He knew enough to be surprised by the hilt Talion held out to him. Instead of taking it at once, he merely dropped his own dagger; his empty hand flapped a bit in midair like a panicky bird too startled to know in which direction to fly. “But it’s yours! It’s too good for Ratbag to use…”

“We’ve been through this before, remember?” Talion’s fingers caught Ratbag’s flapping hand, held it still - no claws, no scars, no warts, skin so smooth it was like vellum from a book - folded Ratbag’s own bony, gnarled fingers gently, curling them around the blade’s hilt, soft and slow, almost as if they were something tender or fragile or… or valuable, or precious… “Anything of mine is yours,” he murmured, “Here. Take it. I want you to use it.”

Ratbag had to blink away a sudden, strange wetness from his lashes. He didn’t want anything to obscure his view of Talion’s face: the warmth of his smile, the kindness in his eyes. “Thank you,” he husked - his throat had closed over too, what was _wrong_ with him? - “Ratbag appreciates it.”

At last the moment broke, as Ratbag finally obeyed the Orcish instincts that had been screaming at him all along to _hide_ this weird _weakness,_ whatever it was, and dropped to his knees on the grass, leaning over the skin with the dagger hilt in his right hand and the broken tip in his left. He set the flat of the edge to the hide and drew it slowly toward him, scraping away the thin layer of pale fat, baring a broad strip of darker skin below.

Talion knelt too beside Ratbag, leaning over the skin to watch the path of the blade carefully. “Good, keep that pressure light. It’s better to err on the side of caution; scraping twice is always better than patching cuts. Those edges are sharp, much more force than that and the blade’ll catch and go right through. If you see any pores you’ll know to ease up.”

But Ratbag was only listening with one ear to all of Talion’s excellent advice. The Núrnen humidity always made scents more intense than the drier air elsewhere in Mordor. The fight with the caragor, short though it was, had been fast and exciting, had set his blood to pumping. The scent of spilled blood and fresh meat had taunted his ever-present hunger as he’d exerted himself to skin their kill, until he’d had to swallow a mouthful of anticipatory drool. And now, all around him and filling his sensitive nose were scents even more tempting.

Even to Talion’s much less acute human nose, the aroma of the scraped fat as it curled up whitely under the blade was surprisingly pleasant: mild, buttery. But for poor Ratbag, it was even more of a tempting gourmet indulgence than sweet whipped cream would have been for Talion, and Ratbag found his eyes glued to the softly curling wave of it, watching it piling up ever higher on the blade as he drew it steadily across the skin toward him, frothed up by the scraping to a fluffy, airy whiteness, and all the more fragrant for it.

Then the dagger reached the edge of the hide, and Ratbag lifted it slowly away, moving with care so as not to dislodge the fluffy white stuff layered thickly all along the blade. He hardly noticed that Talion’s flow of helpful advice had fallen to a trickle, had gone quiet. Ratbag was, for the moment, absorbed in running a finger ever so carefully along one side of the blade, collecting a dollop of fluffy whiteness on his fingertip. He paused to admire it for the space of one more breath of that creamy-sweet scent, then opened his mouth wide, stuck his finger in, and sucked it all off. Ratbag’s eyes eased shut and he hummed hungry appreciation, then pulled his finger out and went for another, even longer swipe of rich deliciousness, this time loading up two fingers, shoving them into his mouth and sucking every trace off them. Eyes still all-but-shut, he repeated the swipe and slurp again and again, quicker and more careless in his eagerness, moaning aloud between slurps, and distractedly sympathising with those mad Orcs that babbled ‘Tasty!’ or ‘Sweet!’ Only his memory of the sharp edges was all that was stopping him from simply saying ‘sod it’ and just licking the blade clean.

But then, when Ratbag pulled his fingers out of his mouth for another swipe, and stopped humming to take a breath, another low gasp reached his ears, another scent hit his nose, and _that_ shocked him right out the ordinary hunger of his belly, ripped his eyes wide open. 

_Talion._ The Man was still kneeling right there beside him; that gasp - so quiet that if he hadn’t been so close even Ratbag’s keen ears would never have heard it - had certainly come from him. He was leaning forward, though he was already close to Ratbag’s side, watching Ratbag with an intensity of focus that he didn’t think he’d ever really seen before, and he’d spent so very much time studying Talion’s handsome features in all their moods. Right now, the Man was wide-eyed: at this distance Ratbag could see that even his pupils were wide for the light, as if he were stalking prey. Talion’s lips were parted slightly, as if he too felt shocked, or was poised to say something.

Ratbag felt captured in Talion’s gaze, dizzied by it, elated: like a drake soaring in a thermal, circling ever higher and higher into a clear blue sky. Absently he set the dagger aside, unable to tear his eyes away long enough to even glance at it. Swallowing down nerves, he parted his own lips and deliberately drew a long, deep breath. He had to be absolutely certain about the scent he thought he’d caught, because it was just too good to be true.

‘Ohhh…’ If Ratbag thought he was dizzy a moment ago, well now the whole world was whirling around him! Down was up, black was white, night was day and nothing he’d thought was true could really be certain again. ‘I was _right!’_ He’d know that scent anywhere: the promise of what it meant to him was a thousand times more enticing than the merely physical temptations of caragor fat and blood and meat could ever be, even if he was starving.

_‘Talion … **wants** me!!!’ _

Ratbag was helpless to hold back the gasp when Talion gave one of his fleeting, shy smiles and murmured, low and breathless, “You’ve got a bit… just here…” as he lifted a hand to Ratbag’s face. A fingertip stroked along Ratbag’s scarred cheek, with a slow, solicitous gentleness that was mirrored in the tenderness in Talion’s smile as he followed the movement with his eyes, then he lifted the fingertip away, to show Ratbag the dollop of creamy white he’d gathered.

Ratbag gave Talion a lopsided smile as he leaned in, and ever so slowly, parted his lips and licked a lingering stripe up Talion’s finger, ending with a teasing flick at the tip. Eyes glinting with mischief at the renewed gasp this elicited, he leaned in and lapped slowly and caressingly at the creamy fat still on the fingertip, moving down with teasing little tonguetip flicks interspersed with longer, slithering swipes until he was pressing soft, lingering kisses into the sensitive webbing between the knuckles. From there, he eased back a little, looking up through heavylidded eyes at Talion.

For a moment the Man looked stunned: clearly Talion had never expected to feel so much sensation from such an outwardly simple gesture. His formerly wide-eyed look had gone positively dazed, and that red Tark blood was vivid in his cheeks now; the glorious scent of his arousal was richly intense in the humid space between their bodies, and the Man’s cock was a thickly visible bar making him shift his hips uncomfortably where he knelt. But the next instant he rallied like the warrior he was: his hand flashed down for the dagger Ratbag had forgotten all about, and he traced the flat of the blade with his fingertips, gathering up the rest of the frothy white scrapings and holding them up on three fingers like a challenge.

A challenge that Ratbag rose to with a truly wicked grin. He shuffled even closer until his knees bracketed Talion’s on the grass - thankful for the bagginess of his breeches that let him spread his legs like that without doing himself an injury, in his by-now achingly erect state - and bent his head with a sigh of wordless need over Talion’s hand. Moving with the greatest of care to keep the points of his teeth clear, he closed his lips softly over the glistening tips of Talion’s fingers. Eyelids lowering in sensual absorption, he swirled his tongue slowly and lingeringly around Talion’s fingertips, deliberately laving each in turn, taking his time, luxuriating in the sensuality of the moment: the warm, sleek smoothness of Talion’s fingertips; the firmer lines of swordsman’s callous along the insides of his fingers; the intoxicating taste of his skin; the slick, semi-liquid richness filling Ratbag’s mouth as he lingeringly licked swaths of creaminess away from Talion’s fingers, swipe after slow, tongue-swirling swipe.

He heard an answering sigh, felt the damp warmth of Talion’s breath, then felt the trailing touch of Talion’s hair, and finally the brush of Talion’s stubbled lips, too openmouthed, slack with desire, to properly be called a kiss, trailing over the back of his bowed head, as it bobbed slowly over the Man’s hand. The gentle touches, the sighing warmth, spilled a tingling rush of gooseflesh all over Ratbag’s body, and he shivered and gasped, breaking the seal his lips had locked around Talion’s fingers and drawing cooler air in around them. Ratbag raised his head slowly, until with a final wet pop he drew back, looking up from the now well-and-truly licked clean appendages, to their owner.

As their gazes met and held, for one timeless instant they were caught together in the suspense of the moment: just like the way the breath still caught in Ratbag’s throat every time he had to watch Talion throw himself down into falls that should kill him, no matter how many times he also saw the Man land unscathed. Ratbag had that moment to take in that startled, stricken look of intense need - wide-eyed, _wild_ -eyed - so strange on Talion’s familiar, beloved features, and then he lunged for Talion, slid up closer, closer, wriggled right up into his lap. Talion seized him, wrapped both arms around his body, tight and hard and strong, hauled him up like he weighed nothing until they collided chest to chest with a thud, and then they were _kissing_ again, just like that night he kept dreaming about, only better, _so_ much better. That time had been wonderful, but it had been just their lips that had been touching, and it had been over much too soon. Now… 

Now Ratbag had time to notice the alien tickle of Talion’s stubble against his lips. Then Talion was parting his lips into the kiss for the first time, ever so slightly, and when Ratbag gasped with surprise at that strangeness, Talion followed up at once, with a tiny, tentative flick of the very tip of his tongue, gently exploring the rings in Ratbag’s lip, rolling them through the skin just like Ratbag himself always did.

And it certainly wasn’t just their mouths that were touching now, either! He was still kneeling astride Talion’s lap, and both Talion’s arms were still wrapped around his waist. He could feel Talion’s shaft pressing up against his arse and bollocks, hard and hot as a blade from the forge even with all the layers between them, and he couldn’t help the whimper that broke from him when for the first time he dared to reach out to Talion, wrap his own arms around the Man’s body, burrow his hands under all Talion’s layers to plaster his palms flat to the Man’s back and just… just _hold on_ to Talion as tight as he could.

Because - even though he was so dizzy with lust and love and desire and dreams-come-true that he couldn’t string two thoughts together, he knew _one_ thing for damn sure - he knew if he so much as _thought_ about touching himself, he’d _fucking explode on the spot._

Ratbag had closed his eyes tight, intent only on luxuriating in every moment of this strange, stunning sensuality of kissing - since he was too close to Talion to see him properly anyway - so of course what happened next caught him utterly off-guard.

With no warning at all, Talion disappeared in an icy blur of power, dumping Ratbag unceremoniously to sprawl on the grass on hands and knees. Ratbag’s head whipped frantically around to look for Talion, even as the bereft Orc shook a haze of thwarted arousal from his mind and snatched his own dagger from the ground, for Acharn too was gone.

Ratbag scrambled gracelessly to his feet and turned quick circles, listening and scenting the air, drawing breath to call out but realising the next moment the futility of that, when his ears caught the snarl and crash of combat in the underbrush a short distance away. He ran closer, dagger raised, but relaxed when he heard the yelps of a terrified caragor - only three-quarters-grown judging by the pitch - retreating into the distance. Talion appeared through the jungle a short distance away, tousled and bleeding from a single superficial clawmark but otherwise unhurt.

Talion wasn’t paying any attention to Ratbag, however; he was too busy arguing with the spectre at his elbow. “…And I don’t suppose you could have drawn my attention to the fact that a caragor was stalking me, by _any_ politer means than by teleporting me there without even bloody warning me first?” 

Of course the Elvish Git never paid any attention to Ratbag as he floated on past; he never did if he could possibly help it. His reply to Talion was particularly smug and self-satisfied, “Why _certainly,_ ” he purred, “I shall be _sure_ to warn you of any dangers at the _earliest possible opportunity_ in future.”

 _‘Now_ he’s fucking done it!’ Ratbag thought, ears and shoulders drooping as he watched the two of them walk straight past him, still arguing. ‘Now Talion’s given him the go-ahead, that slimy Elf prick will _never_ give us another moment’s peace! You just watch, Talion, you poor sod: the moment the thought even crosses your mind, from now on it’ll be nothing but, “Look out, there’s a caragor” or “an ambush!” or something, and if you ever finally run out of patience and call the lying bastard on it, it’ll be “Oh, they saw us coming and ran,” or whatever; that scheming shrakh could lie his way out of Lugbúrz!’ His entire posture slumping, Ratbag slouched after them, back to the caragor carcass, and the partially-scraped skin on the grass beyond. 

Amazing, really: how in such a short space of time, a usually-starving Uruk could lose all his appetite.

***


	12. The Eye

*

Ratbag had made himself intimately familiar with the layout of the entire valley, by scouting out the game trails large and small. The routes he had worked out for himself, to vary his diet and balance the drain on any single prey species, intermeshed so that he stopped by the central part of the valley on more-or-less fortnightly rounds.

He’d dropped off the latest haul of meat at his smoke-cave, delivered more hides, bones and other useful bits to Ur-Ruzad, and had caught up with Az-Harto, who was still extremely busy passing on to the Tribe all manner of information he’d picked up as a Wanderer, though as time had gone on, the large group lectures in the outdoor arena had begun to be supplemented by smaller classes of different sizes, held inside the caves.

On rare occasions during one or another of these stopovers, Ratbag was intensely proud and flattered to be approached diffidently by this or that member of the Tribe whom he’d never met before, and asked for instruction, treating Ratbag as if he too were a Wanderer: usually by the simple method of pointing at this or that piece of his hunting gear and making interested noises and show-me gestures, since these Olog-hai usually had no Common Speech.

Though such requests weren’t always _completely_ unqualified successes, such as with the current occasion. It turned out that, although Olog-hai were attentive and patient students, and incredibly quick to catch on to Ratbag’s sketched diagrams and mimed instructions, Olog fingers were simply too large and thick to easily make the many small, fine knots in useful nets. Or so Ratbag had initially thought, until he’d remembered the different ways of making nets using tools. It had taken him this long to think of those methods, because he never bothered with making or carrying tools, since he could do fine with just his hands.

But once Ratbag had had that inspiration, all it had taken was some tweaks to the cuts he usually used to make a barbed fishing spear, and the result was an Olog-sized fine-pointed hook. It was a few minutes’ work to cut a pair of straight un-barbed spears for another Olog. Soon he had two formerly woebegone Olog students beaming at him over growing nets, one round, one oblong, and both students were surrounded by circles of fascinated onlookers. …Just more skills, Ratbag reflected with an inner pang - even as he returned the Ologs’ smiles with a small, proud grin - that he owed to Talion.

It was at that instant that an ominous rumble ran through the earth beneath Ratbag’s feet. All the Olog-hai felt it: as one, they sprang to their feet and sprinted for the exit to the cave. One of Ratbag’s erstwhile students scooped him up as easily as a child grabbing a ragdoll, and for once Ratbag made no complaint about being Orc-handled: it certainly beat being trampled in the stampede.

When everyone was out of the cave and well away from the mountainside - and thus, out of danger from falling rock or avalanche caused by an earthquake - Ratbag had expected them to slow down, but they all kept going: heading straight for the arena, he realised at once.

When they reached the wide circle of bare rock, they found Ar-Zey the Shaman already standing in the centre. He was wearing only a simple robe, none of the ceremonial Mystic regalia of bones he’d been wearing when Ratbag had met him for the first time in this very arena - evidently the earthquake had caught him by surprise, unlike Az-Harto’s return - but he was an even more impressive sight this time.

He didn’t react to the crowd’s arrival at all; it was as if he hadn’t heard them, despite the noise of their approach. His arms were upraised at full stretch, as raw power fell like a snowstorm from his open hands onto the circle of arcane symbols glowing on the rock all around him. He was shuddering from head to foot, fangs bared in a rictus of ecstasy or horror, and his eyes were glazed with magic, as white as the rest of his face as he stared out over the crowd’s heads, at a fixed point west and south.

Moving in eerie silence, the Tribe spread out to stand around the edge of the arena: a tall and stalwart living wall, surrounding and protecting their Shaman, watching and listening to him with utmost intentness. Ratbag found himself standing in front of Az-Harto, feeling an obscure comfort in the two huge grey hands that descended to cup the points of his shoulders.

When the circle was complete, the shivering of the Mystic escalated suddenly to a hard jolt, and between long gasps, a series of laborious shouts were wrenched from him. Whereas before Ar-Zey had been able to make himself heard clearly all around the arena even though his own voice was quiet and rough, now he sounded even fainter than he should, as though he were shouting to them at the top of his lungs, but from a very long way away. It was fortunate that all the Tribe were practised and patient listeners.

Each of these distant cries were separated by long, suspenseful pauses, and Ar-Zey’s power-glazed eyes flickered all the while, as if he were watching some far-off, frantically active event with fierce concentration. “Ring-Maker and Ring-Master make war! … Both now wield One! … Both would wield Both! … Only One can wield The One! …” But then, with a final, piercing cry of “THE EYE!” Ar-Zey’s concentration shattered; he clapped his power-dripping palms to his magic-glazed eyes and the sigils encircling him exploded in a burst of dazzling white, whose glare briefly closed the eyes of every watching Olog - and Orc.

Many helping hands reached swiftly for Ar-Zey, who had collapsed to a curled huddle with his hands over his face, but it was Ur-Gora who reached him first. Ratbag needed no Black Speech to interpret the worry in Ur-Gora’s quiet, murmured undertone. But when Ratbag saw the wry twist at the corner of Ar-Zey’s wide mouth, he relaxed, even before he felt Az-Harto relax a moment later at his back and whisper, “He will be well. Drained. Needs rest.” Az-Harto fell silent, listening, as Ar-Zey muttered a little more to the crowd. This last pronouncement was met with a ripple of mute nods by the entire tribe. Az-Harto added to Ratbag, “He will tell the Tribe all he saw at dawn.”

Then, Ur-Gora, Az-Harto, and four more of the largest, strongest Olog-hai linked arms in pairs and knelt, the six of them forming a living litter that carried Ar-Zey in semi-reclining state back to the caves, at the head of an impromptu Tribe Procession of Honour.

*

By the time the first rays of dawn had begun to peer over the lowest notches in the mountain wall to the east, not only had the entire Tribe, down to the very last Olog, had the chance to gather around the arena - even the most ancient and infirm had been carried outside and propped up, beds and all, with clear views of the stone circle - but Az-Karhu had arrived as well, carrying with him news for Ar-Zey and the Tribe from fellow-members of the Guardians of the Gate: the Warriors who kept watch on the borders of the valley, and were the first line of the Ologs’ formidable defences, apart of course from the sheer mountain walls and bitter snows themselves.

The Mystic, as good as his word, appeared just on dawn. Not yet recovered enough to make the trek from the caves on foot, as was the Ologs’ usual habit, he made the journey instead riding a huge dire caragor; the normally-rambunctious predator paced smoothly into the arena and seated itself as sedately as a well-trained dog, making itself a plush living couch for the still-shaky Shaman.

As before, the arena was walled in by the bodies of the entire Tribe, standing shoulder to shoulder, watching intently. As before, Ratbag stood by Az-Harto, who whispered simultaneous translation under his breath, just loudly enough for Ratbag’s ears to catch. As before, when the Shaman reached the very centre of the circle, he lifted his head, and fixated on the same spot west and south, and then seemed unable to look away or even blink, though his hands stayed limp in his lap, and there was not so much as a single spark of power anywhere to be seen around him, nor any echo of it to be heard in his voice, when at last he spoke.

“Celebrimbor, Bright Lord and Ring-Maker, barred Talion, Undead and Ranger, from the Gift of Men, and used his hands to make a New Ring, intending to challenge Sauron, Dark Lord and Ring-Master, for the rule of Middle-Earth.” Rumbles of unease met the news of this challenge, but Ratbag didn’t react at all. Though Ar-Zey never moved or blinked, his next words showed that somehow he’d noticed: “This much at least is no surprise to Ratbag, Wanderer and Meat Hoarder, for he travelled far with them, before his blood-brother brought him to us.”

Ratbag blinked. It felt strange, to be directly addressed for the very first time, in Black Speech: to hear embedded in that still-mysterious tongue familiar names, including his own, and to wait to have belated understanding come with the more familiar sound of Az-Harto’s murmur, just on the edge of his hearing.

Ar-Zey drew a deep breath, raising his voice to a shout: “But now, know _this,_ Ferals and Tribe one and all! We live in a new era! Neither Ring-Master nor Ring-Maker are now as they once were: beings opposed but independent. Now the Bright Lord and the Dark Lord are one! One mind, one being, unable to break free of each other long enough to take physical form, their spirits inextricable, locked together in a prison of perpetual war!"

At this, even the inhumanly patient and quiet Olog audience burst out into roars of shock and outrage, but rising over the bedlam came a familiar voice. Az-Harto’s translation also spiked louder in surprise as his twin Az-Karhu strode out of the audience to stand before Ar-Zey, crying, "A Flaming Eye, casting its shadow over Mordor!" Az-Karhu’s face was drawn and his fists clenched spasmodically at his sides, as if they felt empty without his mace. "The Guardians sent me to warn the Tribe of this! A vast and deadly Eye, that burst into flame atop Barad-dûr a day ago, at the same moment when we all felt the earth shudder in revulsion: it was seen by all the Guardians on our Gorgoroth-facing lookouts at the time! It blazes with all the shades of fire, lava red to balefire blue and back again. It twists and turns, casting its glare here and there across the land, and its merest passing glance pierces the soul with fear.” Az-Karhu’s voice, an outcry loud with stress at the start, grew abruptly quieter at the last phrase, until the last five words were a rumble almost as ominous as the one that had sent everyone stampeding from the cave the day before.

“How did this happen?” Ur-Gora likewise strode forward to address Ar-Zey, “What did you see?” In sharp contrast to the strain that was so clear in Az-Karhu’s manner and tone, the Overlord’s voice was slow and level as bedrock. Its sound spread a layer of calm over the circle of onlookers, who had until then been restless on their feet, their vast stony bodies moving with the same massive uneasy sway as a sea beginning to surge under rising storm winds.

Ar-Zey threw Ur-Gora a momentary grateful look, before drawing a deep breath and closing his eyes. “On the Iron Road from Ghâshgôr to Lugbúrz, on his way to challenge for the Throne, Celebrimbor, Bright Lord and Ring-Maker, raised his hand to one of the Nazgûl, and with the New Ring would have stolen him from Sauron, Dark Lord and Ring-Master, and taken him for his own.” There were quiet, uneasy growls at this idea from the audience, but no other word apart from Az-Harto’s murmured translation, as he continued, “But he was thwarted in his theft, by the rebellion of Talion, Undead and Ranger, who slew the Nazgûl while the Wraith held him bound: releasing the Nazgûl from bondage to Bright and Dark Lords both, granting the Nazgûl the Gift of Men, which he himself had been denied.”

All the listeners absorbed this unprecedented concept - a Nazgûl, freed! - in utter silence.

Ratbag found himself biting his lip. His chest began to rise and fall as if there wasn’t quite enough air to breathe, even though he was standing under the open sky, brightening in a growing sunrise. He swallowed, feeling as if invisible claws were closing around his throat. He _didn’t want_ to know, he _had_ to know, what happened next.

“All the while, the Bright Lord and the Ranger had another companion with them on the Iron Road to Lugbúrz: Eltariel, Nazgûl-Hunter and Assassin, sent there by Galadriel, Elf-Queen and Ring-Bearer. The Bright Lord was not slow in taking his revenge for the Ranger’s rebellion. Knowing he could no longer rely on the obedience of his old vessel, he abandoned it at once and gave the New Ring to the other. The Ranger’s mortal wounds reopened and the Bright Lord, hastening to Lugbúrz in his new Elf vessel, left the old one behind to die.”

The sob that had been building toward explosion burst at last from Ratbag: an ugly sound, raw as an open wound. Orcish reflex clapped both hands to his mouth, but his wet eyes betrayed him as much as the tremors running through his gaunt limbs, the snuffles sounding from behind his cupped hands. Beyond giving a fuck about how he looked, or how much of a scene he was making, or whether he was tearing to rags any reputation he might have managed to build up before the rest of the Tribe, his wavering knees folded and he collapsed in a shaking heap. Another juddering sob ripped his mouth open, and he jammed his forearm into it just above the rim of his leather bracer and bit down until the points of his teeth grated against bone, tasting his own blood, black and bitter as his luck, amid the salt of his own snot and tears; knowing it was the only way to stop himself from screaming.

*

Az-Harto simply gathered Ratbag up and settled him just outside the circle of listeners to Ar-Zey’s tale, knowing his blood-brother could not understand it and be further hurt by it without an interpreter, and there he sat with Ratbag, listening with one ear to Ar-Zey’s voice as he continued to tell the Tribe his vision of the Bright Lord’s battle against the Dark Lord, but not relaying another word of it to Ratbag, for now.

For now, Az-Harto simply sat, one arm sturdy and reliable as the limb of a great tree, draped over Ratbag’s shoulder, holding him solid and warm against his side, as Ratbag sat slumped against him, wrapped in the furs of his own hunts and Az-Harto’s fur wrap atop them all. Nevertheless, his whole stringy body was racked wretchedly now and again by abrupt jags of shivering, as if he’d caught a killing chill. “Ratbag just… can’t believe he’s gone.” The whisper was barely louder than the wetly whistling wheeze of his breathing, so worryingly unhealthy to Az-Harto’s ears in that narrow chest: skeletally scrawny to the Olog's eyes, even for Small-folk. “He’s died so, _so_ many times. You’d think he’d’ve gotten used to it. But he _always_ hated it.” Another shudder shook Ratbag, vicious as a dire caragor shaking the life from the prey in its jaws. “That _fucker!”_ he hissed, low and poisonous. “That Elf! Dunno how, but m’gonna make that shrakh _pay_ for betraying Talion!”

Az-Harto sighed. He knew he had to dam the stream of _that_ idea at the source, right now, before it could swell to a flood that could destroy Ratbag’s life. “The Dark Lord has already taken your revenge for you,” he declared firmly. “Ar-Zey saw it happen,” he nodded over his shoulder toward the circle, where the Mystic was still recounting the climax of the battle atop Lugbúrz in the Black Speech. “Remember how he said the Bright and Dark Lords are now one? When they fought, the Wraith in his arrogance tried to Dominate the Dark Lord! But Sauron turned that trick back on the Wraith, and Dominated him instead, absorbed the Wraith into himself. The Bright Lord will never be free again, while the Dark Lord lives.”

It was exactly the right thing to say. Ratbag’s head had been hanging, listless as a flower on a snapped stalk all this while; now it lifted. Now there was a glint in green-gold eyes that could only be called Feral, as Ratbag repeated Az-Harto’s last words: “The ‘Bright Lord’” Ratbag quoted the title with a sneer, “will never be free again, while the Dark Lord lives. …And the Dark Lord can never be killed, while the One Ring exists. …And the One Ring is lost.” Ratbag bared sharp fangs in a savage smile, white in a mouth still black with his own blood, shed in the first frenzy of grief, “…And as far as I’m concerned, those two fuckers can tear at each others’ throats _forever!_ It’s no more than either deserves!”

Az-Harto could only nod in grim silence. Reluctantly, and for the very first time, he admitted to himself that there was something deep in the soul of his blood-brother, that he - one of the strongest Warriors of the Tribe - could look upon and feel the chill of honest fear.

*


	13. Ratbag's Vow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“The Flaming Eye rules over Barad-dûr. Is it Sauron? Is it Celebrimbor? I only know that it is my nemesis.”](https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/UfLkvATvVVPLgePIIyqXNPv6FOsJjHt0PinfqoqIi6W) _\- Talion_

*

From behind Ratbag and Az-Harto’s backs, where they sat just outside the audience, they could hear the once-impassioned pace of Ar-Zey’s tale gradually slow, until at last his voice fell quiet. For a long moment silence reigned, then slowly and reluctantly, the circle of watching Olog-hai began to disperse, talking uneasily among themselves in lowered tones.

Ratbag, too, stood: hauling himself to his feet, blearily scrubbing his face in one palm to clear it of any last traces of betraying wet, and brushing black trails of dried blood from the clotted punctures on his left forearm. He met Az-Harto’s concerned gaze straight-on, and nodded silent, sombre thanks for his blood-brother’s support as he handed back Az-Harto’s fur wrap. “Ratbag’ll be all right.” At the flicker of dubiousness in the Olog’s expression, Ratbag insisted, “Sometime. Sort of. Sooner or later. Just got to _do_ something first.”

He lifted his chin in a determined look, and his mouth was set in a grim, tight line as he glanced around the circle of stone, then he broke into a trot to catch up to the long strides of Az-Karhu, who had already left the arena and had almost reached the surrounding treeline, making for the most direct path out of the valley, clearly intending to head straight back to the encircling cliffs and peaks that he and the other Guardians watched. 

When Ratbag caught up to Az-Karhu, he said in tones that brooked no argument (and _sod_ the size difference and _fuck_ the language barrier), “Ratbag’s coming with you,” a jerk of his head to the heights west and south of them. “Got to see _that thing_ for himself.” A snarl bared his fangs as he lifted both hands in that suddenly ominous direction, the tips of his opposite index fingers and thumbs touching, to form an eye shape in midair.

Az-Karhu looked him up and down measuringly, then grunted, nodded once, and turned away, resuming the machine-steady stride of the Olog’s road pace. Ratbag fell in behind him at once. From the back, it was only the Guardian armour that distinguished him from his twin. Ratbag shivered with more than the usual Seregost chill, as he was gripped by a sudden dizzying sense of déjà vu, the sense that he was doomed to wander all the roads of Mordor in the wake of a vast protector and pacemaker, trapped forever in a prison that went with him wherever he wandered, one he could never escape: the torment of losing Talion.

*

Ratbag had ample cause during their journey to feel relieved he hadn’t chosen a more settled occupation in or around the Tribe’s caves: the months he’d spent hunting the valley and the ranges that walled it in had left him with not only a fair knowledge of where Az-Karhu was going, but had well accustomed him to travelling in the wilderness, provided him with the furs for snow gear, and - as far as possible with an Uruk’s much thinner hide - acclimatised him to the cold. All of this was just as well, because Az-Karhu set a relentless pace, and - unlike his twin - didn’t seem willing to slow down all that much if Ratbag happened to fall behind.

So Ratbag damn well made sure it didn’t happen. Much. The physical strain of climbing and the need to pay attention - he did _not_ want to slip on any ice on these narrow trails! - took enough of his mental focus through the day to keep the worst of his inner anguish more or less at bay. When they stopped that night, Az-Karhu indicated through gestures and pictograms sketched in the snow, that they would arrive at the lookout he was heading for after sunrise tomorrow.

Ratbag curled up by the fire Az-Karhu lit purely for warmth overnight, for neither had food with them to cook. Az-Karhu had come to the valley on an urgent mission, and once that mission was accomplished hadn’t seen fit to linger, and Ratbag had left with him in perhaps even greater haste. Through eyelashes slitted with a weariness more than merely physical, Ratbag stared muzzily at the leap and dance of the flames until they began to swim before his sight, and his leaden eyelids ached to close. 

But what with one thing and another, he really wasn’t looking forward to sleep. The last thing he wanted was to have this huge, gruff Guardian overhearing him bawling like… like Brûz! ‘Oh Talion…’ Ratbag sighed inwardly, ‘you were lost long before now. _He_ took you from me… took you from _yourself_ … took you _over_ … And then he _threw you away_ … And now you’re finally _dead. Dead forever_ …’

With a final, miserable sigh, Ratbag gave himself up to sleep.

***

Most nights in Mordor were dark, for one reason or another. Foggy in Minas Morgul, or in the Black Gate whenever the wind was from the Dead Marshes. Rainy in Núrnen. Smoggy in Gorgoroth because of the machinery, or smoky or ashy because of Mount Doom. Snowy in Seregost. Just plain _dark_ night and day, in Cirith Ungol’s caverns.

For so many reasons, stars were rare in Mordor. But that night, the stars were vivid: a scatter of cold, distant fire far overhead that caught Ratbag’s eye and stuck in his mind. It was on another night like this, not too long before, when Talion had told him, in words slow and quiet and halting as the last drops of blood from a mortal wound, the barest outlines of the horrors that had been inflicted on his family, and on him, at the Black Gate.

That particular night, he and Talion were sitting shoulder to shoulder in the corner of a ruined building - just two scraps of crumbling stone wall in the midst of the wilderness - huddling close together for warmth over a tiny, smokeless fire. Like so many other days, the day just past had held more than its fair share of danger for Talion. This time, the Man had only eluded a huge pack of pursuers by hurling himself from the peak of a heavily defended tower into the yawning gulf of the valley far below. It had been sheer luck that none of the Uruks’ arrows or spears had struck him as he plummeted in that sickening fall.

At least, Ratbag had felt sick inside as he’d watched it, as he always did, no matter how often he saw such things: heartsick with worry, every time he saw the Man in such terrible, mortal danger. So he tried his best to tell Talion how he felt, groping desperately for some way to express his delight in the gentle movements of the Man’s body, breathing against his side, the living warmth and the lovely scent of Talion’s skin, the intensity of his sheer relief that Talion was _alive!_ But all Ratbag managed to blurt out was: “You’re damned lucky! You could have died today!”

If Ratbag hadn’t been sitting so very close to Talion, if he hadn’t been watching the Man’s face with such utter intentness, he might have missed the strange wistfulness to his smile, the twist of sadness to his brow. So quiet were his next words, Ratbag might even have missed hearing them. “Yes, my luck is damned,” Talion whispered, so softly he might even have been talking to himself. He drew breath as if to whisper something more, but then fell silent, clearly thinking better of it.

When the awful realisation hit him of what exactly Talion was talking about, Ratbag could have bitten his tongue off. ‘His _family!_ He _told_ you about them, you useless shrakh-for-brains Orc! He… he wants to _be_ with them! He _wants to die!_ Not like he does now: really die and not come back! Die for good!’ Ratbag stomped down hard on the furtive thought that ‘If he did, it’d never be good for me,’ but he couldn’t stop the shiver that suddenly gripped his whole body and shook it, hard.

Talion, pressed as close by his side as he was, could hardly miss it, was physically jostled by it. “Ratbag?” he turned to peer closer at the Orc, forgetting his own pain at once, as he always did, in his concern for others, “Are you all right?”

Ratbag, never one to let a chance go by, budged up a little nearer, tucked himself a bit more closely into Talion’s side. “M’fine,” he muttered, “bit chilly, is all.” But he ducked his head, unable to meet Talion’s gaze, even as he sought the comfort of his touch.

***

‘…And now you’re finally _free. Free forever_ …’

Ratbag woke with a shuddering breath, with that thought echoing in his mind, poignant and painful, and the first pale light of false dawn splintering in the beads of wet that weighed down his eyelashes. At once he ground his knuckles in his eyes as if scrubbing out sleep until they were well and truly dry, and yawned ostentatiously to show off all his fangs, since Az-Karhu was already up, stamping out and scattering the ashes of their campfire.

They made good time on the last leg of the climb, reaching the lookout about an hour after sunrise. Like all the Guardians’ lookouts, it was easily defensible and even better camouflaged: a jutting outcrop of stone that would have needed heavy siege equipment to damage (and good luck getting such unwieldy things up here), but which looked just like any other untouched, natural spire.

Ratbag bowed his thanks to Az-Karhu for the escort, and this courtesy was returned with a grave nod, a rumbled, _“Êshar,”_ hailing Ratbag as a Wanderer in his own tongue, and a lift of one gauntleted hand in farewell, before the huge Olog walked away, down the trail that Ratbag knew led to the Guardians’ nearest waystation, not a league distant.

All alone, Ratbag climbed the stair dug into the spire - it would’ve been claustrophobically narrow and winding for an Olog, but it was luxuriously wide for him, though of course the risers were inconveniently high and the treads deep - that led to the very tip of the lookout. When he emerged into the open air, squinting in the sunlight, dazzling after the blackness of the stairwell, at first the wind also blinded him by buffeting him with unforeseen force, blowing the straggling strands of his hair forward into his face. He clawed them out of the way with one hand, dashing gale- and glare-induced water out of his eyes with the other, snarling aloud wordless annoyance with himself and the world, and thinking, ‘Too damn much of _this_ lately! My bladder’s too close to my eyeballs!’

But when Ratbag finally got himself sorted and took his first look around, he completely forgot all such minor miseries. He’d known that Seregost was high up compared to the rest of Mordor, but knowing it was one thing, and _seeing_ Mount Doom - the towering volcano that he’d stared _up_ at in awe all his life - _below_ him, diminished by the magic of distance until it looked like nothing worse than a huge red oozing _boil_ on the face of the earth, was another thing altogether.

But… Mount Doom wasn’t the only thing glowing down there, half-shrouded in the haze of Gorgoroth filth. Not anymore, it wasn’t.

Ratbag’s brain went blank, the way it did at the moments of his life that might’ve been the best of times, and might’ve been the worst. Hard to know which, really, even with hindsight:

Talion, his hand… Or was it Celebrimbor’s? Or was it both? _Not_ the whole palm clamped to his skull in the searing totality of Dominance, _no!_ Instead, the most delicate touch, of only the very tips of the fingers to his face. It still blazed through him, body mind and soul, every bit as powerfully as any Dominance: _saw_ him, _knew_ him, left him shaken to the very core of his being; but significantly, it left behind _no_ trace of any brand, neither blue wraithly glow nor red fleshly burn.

The Hammer, his mace… swinging so very casually (ho hum, just one more humdrum murder) the **SLAM** cracking his skull like an egg and sending him flying into the dark… But sometimes he thought it’d cracked his brain just enough to let in a little extra light.

 _This_ light, he knew in an instant, he did _not_ want to let in.

Unlike Mount Doom, whose mouth was a dull, sullen glow, deep red but steady like a single coal on the point of going dark, this light clung to the forked tip of Barad-dûr like a mad candle, flaring and flickering, flashing and guttering, feverish, hectic, never still, not even in its colour. At first it was red, a fire that matched the lava of Mount Doom. But then, all at once it _changed_ , turning Ratbag’s spine to a solid line of icicle-bristling hackles. 

He _knew_ that particular glacier-blue hue of magical power. Knew its source, distrusted it all along, and now - knowing it had betrayed Talion to a cruel and solitary death with utter callous indifference - _hated_ it with a passion that burned as bright as that balefully blazing Eye.

Hated it, and bared sharp fangs at it in a snarl that shifted for a moment to a bitter, gloating grin as the Eye flamed red again. ‘Good! Keep fighting each other! Serves you bastards _right!’_ His fists tightened until his claw points bit into his own palms, and his snarl turned to one of impotence at his inability to wreak his own vengeance on the Wraith he had so much cause to hate.

But then, a chance spark of sunlight, reflecting perhaps from a shield or a window in Khargukôr fortress - much higher and closer to him than anywhere in Gorgoroth, and easier to see in the clearer Seregost air - suddenly reminded Ratbag that though Celebrimbor himself was now as far beyond his reach as Sauron had always been, the rest of Mordor was still right there, just outside the Tribe’s well-defended mountain walls: and who knew _what_ utter havoc had been wreaked across the whole land, by the imprisonment of those two despotic Lords in this chaotic Eye?

(…Who knew how much _more_ havoc was out there, just waiting to _be_ wreaked: by the odd rope cut here, cage opened there, flask of poison in the old grog barrel, sort of thing?)

Ratbag’s snarl changed again, to a _smile_ , a broad, razor-sharp grin of pure, wicked anticipation. He drew his beloved trophy dagger, running his fingertips contemplatively along the uneven serrations of the edge, staring out over the polluted void, never breaking Eye contact as he vowed in a low and venomous purr, “Talion taught Ratbag _so very_ much. So Ratbag reckons it’s up to _him_ now, as _Talion’s Orc_ , to teach as many of _your_ Orcs as he can, their first and final lesson in Ranger skills. In Talion’s name, and for Talion’s memory.”

He touched the dagger tip to his tongue tip, sealing the vow with a single black drop of his own blood, then sheathed the dagger, gave the Eye a single, sardonic ‘see you later’ nod, and turned away, to climb down from the lookout, and start the journey back to the Tribe’s caves, there to make his preparations, and say the fond farewells that he owed.

*


	14. Ratbag, Wanderer

*

When Ratbag arrived back in the vicinity of the Tribe’s caves, he found Az-Harto simply by following his ears. The distant sound of whoops and cheering led him to the arena, where he found his blood-brother in the midst of a circle of young warriors, sparring with one eager combatant after another, demonstrating some of the techniques he’d picked up in his travels.

Ratbag sat by a large waterskin at the edge of the circle and took the opportunity to just watch the Olog warrior move: visibly pulling his punches for the benefit of his students, but appallingly fast for his size just the same. As he watched, Ratbag ached with the knowledge that this would most likely be his last chance to see his blood-brother in action. At last, Az-Harto spotted him and called a halt, after giving a series of commands that had the onlookers splitting up into pairs and practising the moves among themselves.

Az-Harto walked over to Ratbag, nodding a greeting as he scooped up the waterskin and took a long drink. He eyed Ratbag searchingly. “Are you well?” he asked in that blunt way of his. “Did you do what you set out to do?”

Ratbag nodded, once, slow and certain, and rose to his feet, standing tall - well, as tall as an Uruk like him could manage - and met Az-Harto’s gaze squarely. “Yes. Ratbag’s well. Ratbag’s got a mission now, and it means he has to leave the Tribe and go Outside,” he drew a breath that jagged harshly in his chest, though his eyes were as dry as flint, “and you’re Ratbag’s blood-brother, and he’ll miss you like hell! But Ratbag was gonna leave right away, just as soon as he’s packed, and _yes he gets_ that he’ll have to explain first to the Tribe, so he _really_ hopes they’ll agree to let him go; because they’ll have to kill him - or do a lot better job than those slavers did of locking him up - if they want to stop him.”

Az-Harto drew a deep breath, let it out in a long slow sigh. “I thought so,” he murmured at last. “When I saw your face after Ar-Zey’s vision. That look in your eyes; it is even clearer now.” He nodded. “They are wise enough to let you go. There is no arguing with such determination.” he concluded quietly.

“Ratbag just… h-had to tell you first.” For a long moment, the two of them simply gazed at each other. Then without warning Ratbag hurled himself headlong at Az-Harto, who swept him clean off his feet and tucked him under his chin in a full-body hug: rocking ever so slightly, eyes squeezed tightly shut, before he lifted Ratbag even higher and settled him onto his left shoulder in his old familiar position.

Moving thus as one, they turned their backs on the arena together, and strode away for the caves.

*

When Az-Harto was well within the immense entry hall, he muttered to Ratbag, “I’ll announce you have something to say. Block your ears.” Ratbag nodded and slipped down from Az-Harto’s shoulder before taking his blood-brother’s advice. Az-Harto filled his lungs and roared at the top of his voice, _“Ginmi kab!”_

This brought Olog-hai streaming into the hall from every doorway. But Ratbag noted that, though curiosity was plain on every face, there was no undue concern, nor did anyone run. Now that the entry hall was rapidly filling with Olog-hai, Ratbag chose to face Ur-Gora and Ar-Zey, who stood together, framed in the carved archway leading to the Overlord’s throne-room. As he began to speak, his blood-brother began to translate.

“We all heard our Shaman” a nod to Ar-Zey, “tell us what happened. The Eye - well, half of that Eye, the Wraith -” he spat, “- _left Talion to die!_ And Talion saved Ratbag’s life, who knows how many times. And what Talion taught Ratbag, about being a Ranger, has saved his life hundreds of times more. And Ratbag _never_ got the chance to repay Talion for _any_ of it! So there’s a debt Ratbag owes Talion. A debt that can only be paid in blood. So Ratbag has to leave the Tribe, and go Outside.

 _“Ratbag HAS to! YES, Ratbag knows he can’t kill the Eye!”_ Ratbag had to shout to make himself heard over the cries of surprise and protest that exploded in the wake of his announcement, Az-Harto’s growl among them. He turned to stand up to Az-Harto and stare him down as he continued, hurling words almost as defiant as blows, “So Ratbag’s gonna do the _smart thing!_ Ratbag’s gonna _lay low,_ and he’s gonna stab or shoot as many turned backs, and blow up as much grog, and poison as much grub, and wreck as much gear, and turn loose as many beasts, and _fuck up as much of the Eye’s plans as he can, for as long as he lives!”_ Ratbag spun from Az-Harto to Ur-Gora, panting, frantic, “But to pay the blood-debt he owes, _Ratbag **has** to be allowed to leave the Tribe!” _ He held out both his hands to the Tribe’s Overlord, beseeching; they trembled in midair.

All the Tribe held its breath. Ur-Gora and Ar-Zey stared into each others’ eyes for a long moment, as if holding silent council, then they both turned to face Ratbag and Az-Harto once more.

“Ratbag,” said Ur-Gora in his slow, deep voice, “Feral of the Hidden Heights. You named yourself Meat Hoarder, and that was a name well chosen. But _we_ have already named you Wanderer, and we do not give names lightly, and _that_ name less lightly than most. You are a Wanderer, so you will Wander from the Tribe and back again, as your need and the Tribe’s need drives you.”

Ratbag squeezed his eyes tightly closed; he swallowed once and husked into the stillness, “Ratbag hasn’t got the proper words. Not in your language, and not even in mine. ‘Cause there aren’t _good_ enough words anywhere!” He looked from Ur-Gora to Ar-Zey, and then to all the Olog-hai around the hall, turning slowly as he spoke, “…But _thank_ you. _All_ of you! For everything. Ever since Ratbag got here. _Thank you.”_ He finished that slow circle, facing Az-Harto once more.

He drew a long, unsteady breath, but his voice was still suspiciously thick as he choked out, “Well, Ratbag better start packing. No time like the present, yeah?” He scowled savagely and scrubbed his nose on the back of his hand. “Gotta clear out the Meat Hoard. It’s not as though anyone else here is gonna want to raid it, right, Ur-Ruzad?” He fired a sharp grin that Olog’s way and abruptly strode off toward the archway leading to the familiar warren of smoke caves. Az-Harto immediately fell in at his heels, letting him lead the way for once.

*

As always, it didn’t take all that long for Ratbag to pack. The meat he’d prepared was well salted and smoked by now: so dried and hardened and shrunken that a Man would mistake it for old boot leather, but that was how it needed to be to withstand the rigours of travel. That, rolled up in the caragor fur blanket, was the bulkiest part of his packing. A bow cut from a simple splint of wood and a fistful of arrows was his only weapon, apart from his trusty dagger, kept always honed. His time spent hunting the Tribe’s lands had well accustomed him to making other weapons as and when he needed them: spears and nets, traps and snares.

The skills Ratbag had learned from Talion had kept him alive, and in his time hunting the Tribe lands, he had practised those skills until he could successfully stalk the wariest beasts of the wild. As he hefted his pack onto his back, he smiled savagely to Az-Harto, vengeful anticipation shining in his eyes. ‘Soon! Soon Ratbag will get the chance to use Talion’s skills to hunt _worthwhile_ prey: the followers of the Eye!’

When Ratbag and Az-Harto returned to the main hall, it was still thronged with Olog-hai: in fact, in the time they’d been gone even more had joined the crowd. Ur-Gora and Ar-Zey had moved from the arch leading to the Throne-room, to stand backlit in daylight streaming in from the largest archway leading outside. At the sight of Ratbag, full pack on his back, clearly ready to travel, the whole Tribe broke into a chant: slow, stately and sonorous, somehow at once mournful and uplifting. The deep bass notes of their song reverberated powerfully throughout the chamber, until Ratbag felt as though his whole body, the very air in his lungs, was shaken by it.

“The Tribe’s blessings,” muttered Az-Harto into the silence that followed, “farewell and fortune upon the road ahead. Tradition for a departing Wanderer.” His rumbling voice was rougher than usual, and Ratbag simply nodded, his own throat too tight for speech, as he looked up at his blood-brother.

Together, the two of them walked into the sunlit archway, where Overlord and Mystic waited, both again in full regalia, exactly as they had been when Ratbag had first laid eyes on them both. But now Ur-Gora was no longer absurdly overdressed: now he was proudly bearing up under the weight of his many ancestors’ impressive achievements. Now Ar-Zey was no longer a foreboding, mysterious figure: the eyes that searched Ratbag’s own were familiar and glinted with impish humour, even as the Shaman nodded, and announced impatiently, “Well of _course_ he is to be trusted with the Tribe’s secret! Ratbag will _never tell a living soul!”_

This verdict was greeted with a roar of approval that echoed and re-echoed from within the cave, as Ur-Gora and Ar-Zey stood aside, and with sweeping gestures waved Ratbag onward and out into the brightly lit world beyond the Tribe’s home caves.

Ratbag looked up at his blood-brother one last time, then turned and hitched his pack a little higher onto his shoulders, and blinked hard - because the sun glaring on the snow outside was making his eyes water something _fierce_ \- and started walking.

*


	15. I Will Be Sand In Its Gears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“His war machine persists, but I will be sand in its gears.”](https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/yRA5TuWXDHeglpOBgcfLLgan5oXQVj8t0olX4Y6OK19) _\- Talion_

*

Ratbag had been near-insensible with the shock of new loss when he’d climbed the narrow and treacherous trail leading to the Tribe’s lands, racking his brains over and over and _over_ wondering: how had he lost the only one he’d ever loved; where and when had it all gone wrong; what had _he_ said or done wrong; how had that _bastard_ of a ghost finally won their undeclared, underhanded war?

Now, descending the same trail, leaving the Tribe lands behind, Ratbag’s pain hadn’t eased; in fact, it was far worse, now that poor Talion was not merely lost to Ratbag, but finally dead. But Ratbag was done with torturing himself over questions of guilt that he knew didn’t matter anymore, not in light of Talion’s fate.

Now, Ratbag had vowed to take all his pain, and do something useful with it, do his damnedest to _give it right back_ to the bastards responsible: that Elf prick and Sauron.

Now, vengeance for his loved one’s death - a motive so very similar to Talion’s own - sharpened senses and strengthened sinews that months of hunting had already trained. Ironically, he felt more alive now, more aware, energised by his purpose, than he’d felt ever since that horrible moment when he knew he’d lost Talion to the Wraith.

On the way here, he’d been locked so deep inside the torture chamber of his own mind, trudging with his head drooping and his gaze glued vacantly to the path just in front of his feet. that even though he knew intellectually that he was descending the same trail he’d climbed before, often the vast and shining vistas all around were a revelation to him: snow-silvered peaks receding into the misty distance, lucid layers of glacial ice gleaming like polished blue glass.

As he descended into the foothills of the Seregost mountains, and the warmer, thicker air, bit by bit he abandoned the heavy outerwear he’d made for the deep snows of the Tribe’s highland valley, lightening his load. He made far better time on the way down than he did on the way up, for many reasons: it’s always faster and less effort to descend than to climb, he was actually paying attention to the road and consequently not losing time on near-falls, and since he was carrying ample provisions, he didn’t have to stop to hunt.

…At least, not for food.

*

The Uruk camp was one of many small watch-posts flanking Khargukôr, high enough in the hills that the whole sprawling fortress was laid out below as small and clear as if it were drawn on a map. At that moment the last, lingering rays of sunset were pouring slow and rich as molasses over the jagged peaks of the Seregost ranges high above, briefly tinting their snows a vivid russet.

The lone sentry at the outskirts of the camp scowled and spat in the direction of the sunset before turning his back to the sight, muttering something disgruntled about the cold. He hunkered down by a messy pile of charcoal in the dirt that was all that remained of last night’s sentry-post fire, and pulled flint and tinder from a pouch at his belt, then tapped the flint again and again to his knife, snarling with frustration as he fumbled, futilely trying to light the damp charcoal.

Just the sort of distraction Ratbag had been watching and waiting for. From behind the snowdrift by the bend in the trail, Ratbag took careful aim, sighting down the arrow shaft just as he’d done hundreds of times before.

But this time it was different. This time Ratbag wasn’t merely hunting for meat, for his own survival’s sake. This time Ratbag was hunting for _Acharn_ , for _Revenge_. ‘For Talion!’

*

High above, shrouded by the oncoming night from hostile eyes, a drake soared. Its rider leaned low over its back, hooded head craned over the beast’s side, raking the fortress far below with an intent stare, searching out all the details of Khargukôr’s defences, both within its walls and without.

The Orc drawing a bow on the watch-post’s sentry was so far below it was barely the size of an ant, but the snow all around it made the tiny dot of its presence stand out to the watcher’s sharp eyes. A slight, rare smile at the solitary attacker’s sheer audacity gleamed briefly on the watcher’s face. ‘I hope you succeed, whoever you are. Good luck! You’ll need it.’

*

In the instant that Ratbag loosed the arrow, he could have sworn he was no longer alone; just for that moment, in contrast to the cold all around him, he felt a hint of warmth at his back, almost like body heat. It felt so familiar: almost like all the other times Talion had stood protectively over him as he knelt in hiding. Almost as though Talion were still with him, watching over him.

The arrow flew straight and true - in one ear and out the other - and the sentry dropped like a stone, without a sound.

Ratbag flicked a wary glance behind him, his nape prickling, but he was alone. Of _course_ he was. Just like he always would be, for the rest of his life, however long _that_ lasted.

He turned back to his target and cursed under his breath: not about the kill, that had been as quick and quiet as he could possibly have wished, but about whether he’d be able to recover his arrow.

‘Who knew the sod would be _that_ empty-headed?’ Ratbag grumbled inwardly as he dragged the body into the nearest snowdrift, then cast about for the missing arrow.

The arrow fortunately found, he crept onward into the camp.

*

“Where’s the caragor feed?”

“Where I left it, idiot, next to their caAAA…”

*

“Oi! This slop tastes like shrakh!”

“Is it subbosed t’make m’ mouf go numb?”

“Dunno. Dun’ feel s’good…”

“Me neither…”

*

“Poison! They’re all dead! YOU poisoned the lot of ‘em! Tryin’ to kill me too, were ya, you treacherous bastard?”

“Like fuck I did! As if I’d need poison to kill a glob like you! You done it yerself, and now yer tryin’ to pin it on me, you filthy coward!”

“Gonna cut yer lyin’ tongue out!”

“I’ll gut you first!”

*

…And so it went, with Ratbag - amply assisted by the shared suspicions, malices and paranoias that always seethed beneath the surface of any of Sauron’s Orc gangs - decimating one tiny, isolated camp after another, and making discreet strikes here and there at the fringes of the larger outposts, chipping away at their numbers and morale.

Ratbag always worked under cover of darkness and always by the stealthiest methods possible, for he knew all too well that once he was spotted and an alarm went up, his freedom after that would be measured in minutes, and he’d be bloody lucky if all they did to him was kill him.

‘So what if they think this is cowardly?’ Ratbag frowned, still nettled by one of the insults the last two Orcs in the camp had flung at each other as they drew their blades. ‘And so fucking what if it _is?’_ His frown cleared into a grimly satisfied smirk as he nocked an arrow from cover, aiming it squarely at the back of the surviving duellist’s head. ‘Ratbag’s been a Coward all his life, so he’s just the one to make cowardice _work!’_

*


	16. Gossip Around the Grog Barrel

*

Over the days that followed, Ratbag slowly and steadily worked his way downward through Seregost’s foothills, arriving an hour after sunset at the closest encampment to civilisation he’d seen since he’d started to follow Az-Harto: just within sight of the sole gate in Khargukôr’s wall.

This far down, the snow was little more than a grubby blanket worn thin enough to show holes, with none of the deep, convenient drifts Ratbag had recently grown accustomed to hiding behind, and stashing bodies in. But they’d been replaced by denser stands of trees, and the luxury of thick dark undergrowth, so Ratbag was concealed as comfortably as possible, as he stole closer to the camp’s outskirts: or more specifically, to the grog barrel silhouetted against the orange glow of firelight from further in the camp.

But before Ratbag could close the distance and slip in a dose of the hithlas-based poison he’d brewed (handy stuff: fast-acting, good on arrows and blades too), he froze at the tramp of heavy feet and the sound of voices drawing near.

“‘Ere, let’s grab a mug. If we’re quick about it we’ll be there in plenty of time for patrols.”

“Yeah, I could do with a swig. Something to keep the frostbite at bay.”

“Too right! I’m parched!”

“Well _I’m_ as dry as a dead drake’s dong!”

Laughter and a cry of “Shut up, ya glob!”

‘Greedy sods _would_ want a drink right now!’ Ratbag sighed and settled down, resigning himself to wait. To be honest, it wasn’t as though he didn’t know how they felt. If Az-Harto had left him to his own devices back in Gorgoroth, Ratbag knew his wanderings would’ve taken him only as far as the nearest grog barrel, where he’d have swiftly set about drowning his sorrows. And maybe, as like as not, gone on to drown the rest of him.

But now, Ratbag was all business. ‘Sounds as though they won’t be here long, and once they’re gone, Ratbag can get on with tonight’s work.’ He smirked sharply at the thought of the poison flask, and the zipline from an upper cliff that he’d glimpsed through the trees: he’d see if he couldn’t get to the anchor point and cut _most_ of the way through the line.

Occupied with these and other plans, at first Ratbag listened with only one ear to the Orcs’ gossip as they leaned on the barrel and drank. But bit by bit, more of his attention was captured by their chatter.

“And I’m tellin’ ya, something’s not right! Hasn’t been right since that…” the voice lowered abruptly to a hiss Ratbag had to strain his ears to make out, “…that Eye, if you ask me.”

A wordless grumble of agreement went round the ring of burly bodies clustered around the barrel, before another, impatient voice rose, “Ahh, yer always goin’ on like this! Spoutin’ shrakh from the wrong end! Talkin’ like the fort’s about to fall apart!” One silhouette waved a beefy arm, more-or-less in the direction of Khargukôr’s looming wall.

“Yeah?” the first speaker snapped back, _“Yeah?_ You’re so fuckin’ smart, you tell me when’s the last time _you_ saw anyone ride into those gates wearin’ Minas Morgul blue!” More murmurs of agreement, louder and even more uneasy than before, but this time they went uninterrupted by the sceptic. “…I thought not,” the first speaker resumed, sounding bitterly satisfied. “So you can just shut your gob and open your ears when I tell ya something’s not right!” The speaker threw back a triumphant swig. “All the other forts, they’ve still got folk coming and going, I seen all the other forts’ colours, not as many as before, mind you, but there ain’t been _one single word_ from Minas Morgul, not since that - that Eye opened. Not a messenger, not a courier, nothing! I been keepin’ my own eye on those gates. I know what’s what.”

“I know what _I_ heard,” piped up a third voice, slow and quiet and reluctant, as if the words were being pulled out of him. “Talkin’ of messengers, I overheard a coupla globs in Ghâshgôr red over by the caragor cages getting fresh mounts, talking about how things have gone to shrakh in Gorgoroth. How the Overlord isn’t getting any orders from Lugbúrz anymore. Not since…” and the speaker’s silhouette nodded grimly. “Not since then.”

“ _I_ heard,” the fourth voice was outright whispering; again Ratbag had to strain his sensitive ears to catch it, “that there’s _rebellions_. Springing up, all over Mordor. Whole camps going quiet, maybe deserting, maybe getting wiped out, who knows! I even heard that… “and here the speaker’s silhouette actually looked around, as if in fear of eavesdroppers, as if he could feel Ratbag staring at him from the darkness, “…the Eye’s lost control of the Nine!”

This final whisper was met with cries of disbelief from the rest of the drinkers. “That’s what I heard, anyway!” the last speaker cried back defensively, “I heard one of the Shriekers has rebelled! Gone and kicked all the rest of ‘em _and_ the Witch King clear out of Minas Morgul, and taken it for his own!”

Immediately the jeers of derisive disbelief spiked louder, mostly enlarging on the theme of “Garn, that’s shrakh! How could just _one_ of ‘em beat all the rest!” - evidently this last rumour was just too wild - until, shouted down, the Orc subsided with only one last growl of, “Well it’d explain why beady-eye over there ain’t seen no messengers!”

Ratbag rolled his eyes. ‘Tall tales over the grog barrel,’ he thought wryly. ‘If only they were true. Though maybe there’s a grain of truth in it,’ he grinned to himself, ‘Maybe these “empty camps” are word of Ratbag’s revenge, finally getting out. Maybe it’ll get all the way to Lugbúrz! Ratbag hopes they know - hopes HE knows - he’s still got _one_ enemy that he _didn’t_ leave for dead!’

*

The thought that rumour of his efforts had already outpaced him and was worrying his foes, warmed Ratbag more than the growing daylight, as he curled up to sleep in as well-concealed a spot as he could find. That glow of accomplishment stayed with him over the following days as he left the Khargukôr area behind (for he was too smart to attempt an attack on anywhere as heavily defended as the fortress itself), and it kindled a new spark of curiosity within him. He wanted to see for himself just how badly Gorgoroth had been impacted by the mutual imprisonment of Sauron and Celebrimbor in the Eye. With any luck, Gorgoroth - the region containing Lugbúrz - would be even worse off than Seregost had been, which would make Ratbag’s work even easier. And news of that work should get to Lugbúrz even faster. ‘Here’s hoping those two bastards choke on it!’ Ratbag smiled savagely at the thought.

As he travelled west and south, he kept clear of the most heavily trafficked roads, so Orc camps small enough for him to tackle were fewer and farther between. But this just meant that the camps he did encounter were more isolated, so they didn’t bother as much with alarms, since summoning reinforcements from neighbouring camps was out of the question. It was one less thing for him to worry about.

At each of these camps, he paid more attention to eavesdropping as he scouted their defences. Before starting each night’s campaign of subtle, stealthy sabotages, he took to listening from the darkness to any groups that gathered around the grog barrel or the stew pot or the barracks: all ears for any worried or angry or despondent voices, eager to hear more rumours of his enemies’ woes.

Everywhere Ratbag went, the rumours were the same, and not just the rumours nearest and dearest to his own heart, about small camps suddenly emptied of soldiers: a problem variously blamed on rival camps, nameless foes and mass defections. The other rumours that came to Ratbag’s delighted ears were also encouragingly consistent: reduced communications between most of the capital fortresses ever since the opening of the Eye, and sudden total silence, not only from Lugbúrz (understandable since the Tower would surely suffer the worst upheavals in all Mordor from the recent, drastic change in the ruling power), but also, oddly, from Minas Morgul.

This last strangeness, when any attempt was made to explain it, was always ascribed, in foreboding, furtive tones, to the same cause Ratbag had first heard and promptly dismissed as a blatant tall tale, back at Khargukôr’s gate: the insane idea that a Nazgûl, of all things, had not only done the impossible and broken free of the Eye’s Dominion, but had then gone on to an equally impossible victory over all of his fellows, including the Witch King himself; a victory so decisive that he’d driven every last one of the other Nazgûl out of Minas Morgul, captured the entire city, and turned it into his personal stronghold, the headquarters for a singlehanded rebellion against both the Eye and the combined might of all the rest of Mordor!

Really, it was beyond insanity, the single maddest thing Ratbag had ever heard in his life: even madder than Muzu the Maddest One’s babblings, which up to now had been Ratbag’s gold standard for bat-shrakh bloody bonkers!

…But the problem was, Ratbag _kept hearing_ this insanity.

Again and again, in one camp after another, he heard varying snippets of information offered to defend this crazed idea when it was perfectly justifiably ridiculed: second- and third-hand accounts swearing that here and there, traitorous grunts had even been captured alive, turncoats who’d gone and sworn their allegiance to this… this rebel Shrieker!

For insanity, it was annoyingly consistent, and persistent. It stuck like a burr in the back of Ratbag’s mind, because it was a mystery he couldn’t quite explain. As he continued his westward journey through the more isolated parts of Gorgoroth - of course always taking the greatest care to stay out of sight of the Eye - he found himself mulling over it in every idle moment. Though the way the puzzle niggled at him was annoying as hell, in a way it was also welcome: the distraction of it was a lifeline he could cling to, that helped him keep himself from drowning in the sunless sea of his grief.

*

As Ratbag was getting ready for sleep, just on dawn after another night’s work well done, he admitted to himself that his course had been tending steadily westward ever since he reached Khargukôr anyway. Yes, Gorgoroth had been his initial goal, but now that he was here, it’d be stupid to retrace his steps eastward again. Returning to targets he’d already hit would only increase the odds of being spotted.

‘Why not?’ he thought to himself with a fatalistic shrug and a crooked little smile. ‘One direction’s as good as any other, as long as Ratbag’s not re-treading old ground. Why not take a quiet look around that neck of the woods? Looks like finding out what’s going on will be the only way to be done with this shrakh!’

‘And what if it’s _not_ shrakh?’ The inevitable question lurked at the back of Ratbag’s mind, every bit as furtively and dangerously as he’d ever lurked at the borders of a camp, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. ‘Maybe the Overlord at Minas Morgul rebelled, and took all his Warchiefs and Captains with him, and he just made up this tale to scare the Eye’s Orcs off, like Ratbag made up the Etten. _That_ ’d be splendid, to have allies again! It’d be well worth the journey, not to always be fighting the Eye alone.’ For the umpteenth time he pushed the question away, only this time he did it with the thought, ‘We’ll see what’s what, soon as Ratbag gets there.’

The satisfaction of a decision made left a rare, slight smile on his face as he curled up and closed his eyes, settling down for a bit of well-earned rest…

***


	17. Ratbag's Dream, Part 1

***

Disobedience was ever a thing Celebrimbor had had difficulty in tolerating. Perhaps it was one reason he’d always been so well-suited to taking on the role of slavemaster to the Orcs and Uruks of Mordor: Uruks and Orcs as a people, never having had very much in the way of discernible free-will.

Dealing with disobedience from his branded and dominated minions was one thing; but as it turned out Celebrimbor also dealt with disobedient tendencies from ‘his vessel’ Talion with equal short shrift.

It was just after the Ranger had arrived at Sharkhburz Fortress and he and Ratbag had – met. Talion had come, he’d seen through the Double-Headed Overlord ploy that Ratbag and Az-Harto had been working, and afterwards, with impressive alacrity he’d hurried himself and Ratbag off for some one-to-one time, in the nearest anteroom.

“I’ve questions for you that deserve to be answered,” Talion had said.

Back up against a wall, he’d pushed him. Then his hands went wandering all over Ratbag, solicitous yet impersonal, in a methodical testing of the strength of his limbs and the way his joints moved; as if he was taking inventory of every new mark and scar and break in the Orc’s skin.

He hadn’t asked Ratbag a single one of his ‘deserving questions’, not yet.

“Good,” he commented at one point, his hands on the Uruk’s waist. “I see you’ve finally managed to put on a bit of weight.”

Ratbag didn’t quite know how to respond to that.

Talion went back to minutely examining him.

“Not too badly damaged,” he concluded, at length. The smile he gave Ratbag was thin. “I scarcely dared hope, after what I saw happen with the Hammer…” he broke off, voice catching in his throat.

“Talion?” Ratbag said.

The Ranger’s eyes were wet. He wouldn’t look at him. “For all this time I was so sure I’d lost you, too.”

“Talion.” Ratbag reached his hands up to his companion’s face. “You mustn’t take on like this! There’s no need to worry. See? Tough as old boots, Ratbag is.”

The sound that broke from Talion was half of a laugh, and half of a sob. For a moment he clasped his hand to the back of Ratbag’s neck, then thought better of it and flung both of his arms tight around him. They hugged each other in a firm, welcoming embrace.

And right at that point, as if he’d been patiently awaiting his opportunity, “Your Orc’s not quite as ‘tough as old boots’ as you might like to think, Talion.” Celebrimbor’s familiar, acerbic tones cut in on and ended their moment of reunion. Right on cue he had: he’d come and found them, the Elvish git. “You should think of treading with the greatest of care around your precious Ratbag,” he advised Talion, “for someone has been meddling. I, for one, can sense that something’s been done. There’s something deeply not right about him.”

With a worried, backward glance over his shoulder, Talion hurried to the doorway of the anteroom, where the Wraith was waiting. There they spoke together in low, heated tones for a time.

Snippets of their conversation reached him. “Celebrimbor. I will have this. After so long - thinking him dead -”

He could hear the sound of the Elf’s retort - the usual scorn, and naked contempt saturating his voice - but not make sense of it. The immediate effect of his reply on Talion was clear enough, however. The Ranger’s eyes widened with shock and for a moment he faltered, before gathering his resolve. “I said, _leave!”_

Ratbag had no need to hear what the Wraith had said. He knew that it would’ve been something cruel; spiteful; filled with bile and venom; shaped by a master craftsman with care and with deliberate intention to wound Talion, and to cause the hapless Ranger the maximum amount of distress. Ratbag would’ve wagered his life on it.

And it seemed that Celebrimbor’s words had found their mark. Talion stood silent, his shoulders hunched, staring after him.

The Orc crept closer, and touched the Ranger’s elbow. “Ratbag… Ratbag’s not sad he’s gone,” he ventured, uncertainly.

“Yes.” Talion half-turned towards him, his expression morose. “That doesn’t surprise me. I remember there was never much in the way of friendly feeling between you.”

Ratbag blew through his nostrils, making a snorting, disparaging sound. “Ratbag reckons there’s not much ‘friendly feeling’ between that one” he jerked his head in the direction Celebrimbor had chosen to flounce off in, “and _anyone._ Even…” he broke off and regarded Talion with a wary look before continuing, “even between him and you.”

The Ranger sighed. “Through necessity Celebrimbor’s thoughts are occupied by far weightier concerns than mere friendship.”

“Yeah, and it’s much easier for him like that, innit? Carrying on all the time like a great big drama queen. Getting it so everybody’s always having to tiptoe around him. ‘Mustn’t upset Celebrimbor, must we?’” Under his breath he muttered, “Elvish _prick.”_

When he answered Talion’s tone was as self-deprecating as it was wry. “I do my best to make allowances for him.”

“You know what he said?” On an impulse, Ratbag heard himself asking him. “He said you’d never be Ratbag’s. That he’d never allow it: letting on like he owned you. Like you’re his possession, kind of thing.”

“I’ve little doubt the Elf-Lord wouldn’t hesitate to think so.”

“Ratbag _bets_ he wouldn’t! Afterwards he chased me off, telling me you were only ever going to be his.”

Talion furrowed his brow. “And when did Celebrimbor say all of this to you exactly? You never seemed to have much to do with one another, as far as I could see.”

“Uh. Ranger…” Ratbag’s face fell. He felt himself beginning to colour up, as, with dismay, he realised precisely when that unhappy conversation had taken place. It had been a long night for Ratbag, after Celebrimbor chased him away from Talion, and afterwards he’d lain for hours on the bare ground, aching with need for him, his desire painfully unspent. As all the while, images of Talion burned in his brain…

His Ranger, with his head thrown back and his face flushed. One hand stroking and plucking at his chest, the other moving languorously back and forth between his legs. The sight of him, lying there; even the idea of him pleasuring himself like that…

That’s what Ratbag had been thinking about all night as he yearned for Talion, lying miserable and chastened and all alone.

This was all very well, but there was no way on earth he was prepared to _tell_ Talion about any of it.

“Ratbag doesn’t think he can remember,” the Orc gulped, doing his best to avoid Talion’s gaze. “Yeah, talk about shrakh for brains! Such an idiot, isn’t he…”

But the Ranger’s hand went clasping instantly around his throat. And he didn’t do it gently, or kindly: he grabbed and commanded Ratbag exactly in the manner of a Man who had become accustomed to absolute authority; someone who expected his instructions to be obeyed to the letter, unquestioningly. Granted, there’d always been an aspect of ‘All Shall Bend to my Will!’ about him, but Ratbag had always assumed it had only been due to association with that twatting Elf-git, so when had this happened? Because Ratbag didn’t remember Talion - his humble, unassuming Ranger - being even a little like this, before.

“Ratbag?” he demanded. “Are you hiding something from me?”

Ratbag squawked in alarm as the Ranger tightened his grip. “It was after that Assassin!” he blurted.

So much for playing his cards close to his chest! He’d been well and truly rumbled! ‘In for a ghûl, in for a graug!’ Ratbag thought, suddenly giddy with his own recklessness.

“You know, the Assassin! The one Ratbag jumped on from high up on that tower, to stop him from getting you. And then when he fell on him it kind of did his back in.” To his infinite relief Ratbag felt the fingers that were digging into his skin begin to relax their grip. “And, and after that he was standing watch and couldn’t help it. He heard you, and went to check ‘cause of he thought someone had got past him, that you were in trouble…”

The Ranger had that frowning look on his face again. “I remember that night,” he said, slowly. “I wasn’t in trouble.”

“No, you weren’t! Ratbag saw what you were doing, and you, and you…”

With a convulsive, clutching movement, the hand round his neck tightened its hold on him. _“What did you see?”_

Talion had been pinning the Orc at near arm’s-length, all the strength in his grip directed at stopping Ratbag from squirming away and weaselling himself free; clearly the most he’d thought to expect from a coward, and a worm-like creature such as him. He could see the surprise register in the Ranger’s face, then, when Ratbag, with both hands clasped round his wrist, and as much force as he could muster pulled himself nearer, ‘til he was as close as he could be, pressed tight against Talion’s chest.

“Ratbag saw you, and he wanted you! He’s always wanted you. He wants you still!”

Talion’s expression changed. The anger, remorse and suspicion that had been there were replaced by something else. Something intent, something single-focussed, and… different.

He made a pained, wordless exhalation – then he picked Ratbag up and sort of shoved him, till there Ratbag was again, with his back pressed to the rough stone of the wall.

One of Talion’s hands was cradling the back of his head. The sense of restrained strength in it was unnerving. If he wanted he could’ve, most probably, crushed Ratbag’s skull like an egg.

Yes, it might’ve been unnerving, but it was also exhilarating. It didn’t occur to the Orc to think of complaining.

Talion picked him up and moved him. Placed him where he wanted him; back up against the wall, and not quite on his feet, positioning Ratbag so that he was braced half-perching on Talion, with Talion’s knee pushed in snug between his legs. Then the Ranger was all over him. Talion mashed their mouths together. Between them was all heat and no gentleness: one of Ratbag’s eye-teeth drew blood when it caught on Talion’s lip. He drew back with a grunt of pain, and the look in his eyes as he stared down at Ratbag: in that moment Talion was nearly a stranger. The look on his face was almost alarming to Ratbag; almost frighteningly exultant.

Ratbag licked sweet Tark blood and whimpered, straining as hard as he could up to reach him. He wanted Talion; felt, at this point, that he needed Talion every bit as much as he needed air, and breathing. Ratbag didn’t think he could survive another minute, if he didn’t get to feel the touch of Talion’s hands against his skin. He tried to shrug himself out of his bone-ornamented leather jerkin, but something had gone awry. In attempting, against the confines of the stone wall, to wriggle his arms free the damn thing had become wedged across Ratbag’s shoulders and try as he might, he couldn’t get any further in, or out of it.

Bowing his head, he wrenched side to side and heaved.

_Nothing!_

Ratbag’s heart throbbed, hard, in an uneasy rhythm. He was aroused to the point of panic. His head felt congested. He wondered if he’d faint.

“Here. Let me help.” Ranger eased the garment down Ratbag’s body so that instead of his chest and his shoulders, only his elbows were trapped. That was better! At least now he could straighten his back. It came as a relief for Ratbag to be able to let his head drop backwards until it was resting against the wall. The cold stone was soothing.

Obligingly, Talion followed him. With bruising force he began kneading and sucking a love-bite deep into the expanse of bare throat the Orc had exposed for him. It hurt, and it didn’t hurt. Ratbag had never much cared for this kind of pain-marking-play tomfoolery before, or so he’d thought, but with Talion it felt overwhelming. He was being marked by Talion. Everyone would see, and the blood flamed in his cheeks at the thought of it. At that moment the back of the Ranger’s hand went brushing between his legs. Ratbag’s mouth opened and shut and opened and shut. He didn’t think he could breathe.

It was over too soon. A few moments more of overpowering sensation and Talion drew back from him. “We can’t do this here,” he told Ratbag, his voice full of regret.

 _What?_ There was _no way_ he was planning on leaving Ratbag like this, was there? Half-naked, flushed, debauched; cock standing hiked up like an Uruk’s pikestaff…

He didn’t think. He wriggled forward, arms still trapped against his sides, reaching for Talion, whimpering, kissing anywhere he could manage; his chin, the sides of his mouth, all over the scruff of his stubble…

Because Ratbag was no better than a caragor-kit at its den, was he? A pathetic caragor-kit, fawning and welcoming home its dam…

Well, so what if he’d fawned and he’d curried for favour? Begging for scraps of affection came next! “Please, Talion, _please,”_ Ratbag said. “‘Here’ def’nitely works for Ratbag. ‘Here’s’ going to be just fine.” He squirmed with his hips, bucking them forwards hopefully to draw Talion’s attention. There was an outside chance he might still be able to get his companion to…

He broke off then, because he could see it in Talion’s eyes. Yes, _he bet_ that bastard Ranger did. He bloody _liked_ seeing Ratbag - desperate, helpless, full of need - like this.

“You are an eager little thing, aren’t you?” his _bastard_ Ranger said. Then he clasped his hand to Ratbag’s face and kissed the top of his head. And all at once for a moment he looked just like the old Talion: for the first time since their reunion, the warmth in the smile he gave Ratbag reached and rekindled something that, until now he had been missing; some of the softness and kindness in his eyes. For a moment he rested his forehead against Ratbag’s and told him, fondly, “Later. I promise.”

“But _when_ later,” Ratbag groaned, “when? ‘Cause you know what’s going to happen, don’t you? There’ll be a new crisis. Or a set-back. And the Fortress’s going to come under siege. Or Assassins might attack. Or, or…” he carried on running through his mental list of worst-case scenarios and was quick to hit on the least appealing of some very bad ones, “Glow-in-the-Dark-Head’s going to come back!”

Talion’s lips twitched in amusement but without answering, he placed him upright on his feet and set about putting him back to rights.

“‘Later’ meaning ‘very soon’,” Talion told him. He regarded Ratbag steadily. Then he kissed him again on his forehead and said, in a voice filled with promise, “I want to be able to take my time, with you.”

*


	18. Ratbag's Dream, Part 2

*

Despite Ratbag’s fears, the rest of the day passed peacefully. There wasn’t a drama, or a setback, or a crisis, and neither did Celebrimbor return. In the meantime Talion had sent word to Ratbag, arranging for them to see each other again that same evening.

“Meet me on the western battlements,” he’d said.

But meet him there for what - a lover’s tryst? The Orc could barely imagine what being together with Talion properly would be like, after such a seemingly interminable time of missed chances and ‘nearly’ and ‘almost’. Would it be brusque between them, he wondered, impersonal; a simple exchange of the pleasure that each of them had to offer? After all the majority of Ratbag’s past experiences had had some element of being transactions like this, and yet the very thought of… _that,_ and his Ranger, made something sharp-toothed and ferocious in him rise up and rebel against it. The vehemence of his emotions brought Ratbag almost to the edge of panic. In Mordor, as he very well knew, it didn’t do for an Orc to come to care about anything, or any one person, overly much.

What would being together with him properly be like? Well. The time had come. As Ratbag made his way upstairs and towards their meeting place, it looked very much as if he was on course for finding out.

When Ratbag got there the sun was going down behind the fortress, beyond the hills off to the west. There on the upper battlement, they were raised above the smoke and the jumbled sprawl of buildings of the extended Orc-encampment, and only the grassy slopes of Núrn and the treetops of a vast, encroaching forest lay beyond.

Talion was waiting for him out on the ramparts, looking out over the sunlit vista below.

‘Lord of all he surveys.’ The thought came to Ratbag unbidden, but what else could you call him, really, what with all this fortress-taking and Overlord-making nonsense?

Out in the evening sunlight he stood, framed by the old stone archway against a verdant Núrnen landscape of green and gold.

For once the Ranger was out of his cloak, sword-belt and armour. Instead he was dressed in a simple, loose-fitting tunic and set of leggings, the type of outfit that, at least in his and Ratbag’s earliest days of travelling together, from time to time he’d worn. His clothes were clean and had obviously been laundered but were deeply creased from storage. Even from here the Orc’s sensitive nose could detect on them the pleasant, resinous scent of wild thyme and mugwort, plants that – assuming Ratbag was correctly remembering the herb-lore Talion had once taught him – were used in combination most often for deterring moths. The items had obviously been folded away in storage for quite some time.

The Ranger had shaved his beard and his soft brown hair looked as if it had been trimmed, and recently washed, too.

At once Ratbag was struck by a keen sense of having been wrong-footed. It hadn’t for a moment occurred to him that this was going to turn out to be one of those ‘dress for the occasion’ jobs. Since they’d last spoken, long hours before, he’d been in a constant, heart-sick muddle of dreadful anticipation. Up until this point, it hadn’t even occurred to him to wash his filthy Orc hands.

 _“I want to take my time with you,”_ Ratbag reminded himself. That’s what Talion had told him, and what more, really, could he have asked from him? Seeing how he’d had it straight from the caragor’s mouth. That meant it was a done deal, wasn’t it? And that he, Ratbag - no matter how deplorable a state he was in - had already passed muster.

_Didn’t it?_

The little Uruk stepped onto the battlements, squaring his shoulders a bit.

“Here,” he said, calling him, “Talion.” He sidled up and took his place by his companion’s side. As the Ranger turned to Ratbag the evening sun was on his hair, and the wind in his face; a warm, salt-laden breeze bringing with it the scent of the ocean, and of all the things living and dying and spawning together in it.

Talion looked careworn. Older. The weight of the responsibility he bore was ingrained deep in the set of his brow and the new lines visible in his face.

Then he smiled at Ratbag. The Orc’s heart turned over in his chest. His Ranger was heartbreakingly handsome, still. For long moments he could only stand and stare. It wasn’t only the setting sunlight that was dazzling him.

At length Ratbag rallied, and, as he was sometimes wont to do, opened their conversation with the very first thing that came into his head.

“Smell that?” he said. He drew in a deep, exaggerated breath.

Talion nodded appreciatively. “The sea air? Yes. It’s bracing.”

“Really? You reckon?” he regarded the Ranger with his head tilted on one side. “Ratbag likes it. But here he is thinking Tarks don’t like the sea.”

“I wouldn’t say that. What makes you think so?”

“On account of that fella who wrote the book, inn’it? Some brain-box come here out of Gondor. Took one look and decided the whole lot was ‘unfit’.”

The Ranger frowned. “Unfit?”

“‘Bitter,’ Ratbag means.” He waved his hand in a vague gesture. “‘Cursed.’ Fella said it was foreign parts. Means you can’t drink the water.”

Talion said, slowly, “You can’t drink the water… because it’s the sea.”

The Orc nodded his agreement. “Ratbag knows it’s the sea! Queer sort of cove, that fella must’ve been. He didn’t think much of the look of the fish, either. Gave him the willies. Proper got his knickers in a twist, the way they’re all…” lodging his knuckles under his chin he waved his fingers in front of his mouth in a way that explicitly demonstrated: _tentacles_. “Like this.”

“In my experience Ratbag, Men-folk are scared of things that look different.”

The Orc answered him immediately. “You aren’t though, are you Ranger?”

Talion’s brow furrowed. “How do you mean?”

“Ratbag’s heard the stories they tell about you,” Ratbag told him soberly. “About you, with your caragors. And graugs! Smashing fortresses with ‘em. Riding about all over the place.”

“Ah. That.” The Ranger had coloured up a little. “Well, that was no more than a means to an ending, really…”

“And on a Fire-Drake! Flying through the air! Perched right up on the back of that thing!” Ratbag’s eyes widened in recollection. “And then you with that… with the…” he dropped his voice and spoke almost reverently, “with _Her_.”

His companion was regarding him with an odd, an almost apprehensive expression. “You mean the Spider?”

“Spider? What spider? No, Ratbag means her from the Forest. That one made of nothing but twigs and roots and leaves. Her, who’s a bona fide _Spirit of Nature_ sort of thing.”

“You mean the Guardian of the Forest.” The pensive look on Talion’s face had vanished. “Yes,” he replied, “there’s dark, and light, it’s true. But the world is also full of wonders, Ratbag. A Man who’d sooner close his eyes than look at differences. Well.” He broke off and was silent for a moment.

Ratbag crept closer. “‘Well’?” he whispered. “Well _what_ , Ranger?”

Talion brushed the back of his hand in a careful stroke up and down against the Orc’s cheek. “Well,” he said slowly, “I think that such a Man, always fearful, and forever set on keeping his eyes closed, would miss both wonder and the danger. He could never know the extent of all the things he’d overlooked.”

Ratbag caught his hand where it was gentling him and pressed it to his face. “And you’re saying you can see dark… as well as light, are you Talion?”

The Ranger’s breath huffed out in a tired-sounding exhale. “I’m walking with one foot in the Wraith world already. As I have been, for all the time you’ve known me.” Something in his tone made Ratbag shiver, not just his weariness and his resignation but something else, an almost palpable note of dread and suspicion in his voice that hearkened to the look he’d had on his face when he’d been speaking earlier, of a spider.

“Talion?” the Orc began, “is something wrong?”

But at the first sign of discomfort from Ratbag, his companion had rallied. Of course he’d rallied, putting aside whatever nameless, personal misgivings had been troubling him, selfless, as ever, to a fault. With his arm round Ratbag’s shoulders he drew him close. “Here,” Talion said. “Somehow that breeze does feel colder, doesn’t it, now that the sun’s set. We need to get you warm, indoors.”

Taking him by the hand, he led Ratbag back into the castle keep. They stepped in under the honey-coloured stone archway and into a spacious kind of anteroom or vestibule, onto which doorways to several different rooms adjoined.

One of these, he knew, would be a sleeping chamber. Ratbag was curious; he’d carried out a thorough investigation of the fortress, inside and out. Still, when it had been just him and… Other Ranger running things between them, he’d tended to avoid the above-ground levels of the citadel. The cold stone of the upper storeys; the airy sense of height. A Cowardly Orc could find himself cornered on his own up there, vulnerable, exposed, and not only to the danger of attack: exposed also to the wandering wind, and the cruel light of the stars and the sun. For these, as well as other reasons, Ratbag had much preferred to bunk down in the warmth of the storerooms by the kitchens, alongside his Olog companion.

Talion, meanwhile, soon had a blazing fire lit. He’d had the foresight to bring up here - or have brought - a fine pile of logs and kindling and pine-knots.

Even if the weather didn’t feel quite cold enough for them to need it.

Talion being otherwise occupied, the Orc made his way back onto the battlements. By now it was getting dark. A bat or two flitted past. Ratbag stopped, blinking in confusion, at an item placed there that he hadn’t taken note of before: it was a small table, that had been laid out in a mossy, vine-hung nook, together with a pair of folding camp-chairs.

What… _the shrakh?_

Shortly afterwards the Ranger joined him. “Ah, Ratbag,” he said. “I thought you might enjoy…” but his words trailed off as he took note of the Orc’s expression. Self-consciously, he cleared his throat. “Here. Why don’t we sit down together.”

The little table had a cloth laid over it, which Talion now removed. Underneath it was arranged… an array of store-cupboard ingredients. There was dried fruit. Potted meat. Ratbag counted at least six different varieties of preserved fish. He stared at the spread, dully. Talion, meanwhile, was lighting…

“Talion? Are those _candles?”_

“Yes.” The Ranger coloured up a bit. “You look - _well_ \- by firelight, Ratbag, or so I’ve always thought.”

Ratbag waited for the punchline to it, the other shoe, to drop. ‘What, is that because in dim lighting you don’t have to see this ugly mug of mine?’ he thought. ‘Just hilarious, aren’t you?’

But his companion said nothing of the sort. With a gallant gesture he pulled the Orc’s chair away from the table, holding it ready for him to sit down in.

What else could Ratbag do? He sat.

Talion, meanwhile, had gone around to Ratbag’s other side and, getting in his space a bit, was solicitously pouring a glass of wine for him. He poured a glass of his own, then sat down opposite Ratbag. He was so close that their knees were almost touching.

Right this minute? Seriously? The Tark thought _this_ was a timely moment for him to start eating his dinner?

Now, Ratbag enjoyed his food. Of course he did! And, within certain limits he generally enjoyed the act of sexual congress too. Wait! There was going to be a point to all of this: the Orc liked food, and he also liked sex. But from his perspective it was ever a case of food, or sex: usually him submitting to the latter in exchange for the former. Ratbag was never lucky enough to get both food _and_ sex at the same time: in his experience the two of them were… they were bloody well mutually exclusive.

They were, weren’t they?

Talion had begun helping to serve Ratbag a variety of choice looking tid-bits, each of which he solicitously deposited, one by one, on the Orc’s plate.

The little Uruk bristled. Was Talion really thinking he couldn’t shift for himself now, or something?

 _Very_ solicitous, about all kinds of things that didn’t matter in the slightest, the Ranger was being.

Oh yes. It was easy for Ratbag to see where this was going. Talion _was_. All this rigmarole: he must’ve reconsidered. Food preparation; fire lighting. The Ranger was procrastinating! _Of course_ he’d reconsidered, why wouldn’t he? And now here he was, just killing time, before he got round to breaking his glad tidings to Ratbag. As if he thought the news would sit better on a full stomach!

All at once the Orc found he’d already had more than enough of this. He shoved his chair back from the table and jumped to his feet. “What _is_ this, Ranger?” he demanded. “Ratbag doesn’t understand. If you’ve changed your mind and you don’t want him anymore you should just tell it to him straight. He doesn’t know what you’re trying to do.”

With an abrupt movement Talion also stood. He opened his mouth and then shut it again, looking very much at a loss for a moment. Then his expression turned resolute. “I’m trying to woo you,” he said.

“When we were together,” the Ranger went on, “earlier, I’m aware that I allowed my…” here he broke off, looking pained, “my _emotions_ to get the better of me. I was so very glad to see you, Ratbag, but it shouldn’t have happened, my suddenly dragging you off and accosting you like that. Because of it I wanted to give you all the time you need to warm to me again – or not!” he added, quickly. “I didn’t wish to make any assumptions.”

Ratbag’s head was spinning. “Meaning?”

“It’s been such a long time,” he told Ratbag, “it’s been years.”

“And?”

“And I wondered if perhaps you’d moved on, and found someone else.”

The Orc blew through his lips making an unseemly, raspberry-sounding noise. “What, you’re asking if _Ratbag_ has? Now, who’s he going to move on _to_?”

Talion’s answer came at once. “Your friend, Other Ranger.” He was deadly serious in his reply.

There he went _again,_ talk about carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders! But that was all right, because with his words, a different weight - that of rejection, which had been crushing Ratbag and stymieing him - lifted instantly. It was going to be all right. He knew just how to cheer Talion up when he got like this. Making his way round to his companion’s side, for a moment he buried his face in the Ranger’s shoulder, nuzzling and breathing in the steady, solid sense of him. This same gesture in the past had brought solace to the Orc countless times. 

The truth was that it had brought untold comfort to both Talion and to him.

“Little-known fact about Orcs,” Ratbag said. Thinking about it he broke off, shaking his head. “Well. Some Orcs. Or… or Ratbag means he knows of at least just the one.”

Talion’s hand went stoking at the side of Ratbag’s face, gentling him, the same way he’d always used to do. “Well?” he said. “Aren’t you going to tell me what is it about Orcs? Or ‘some Orcs,’ or ‘at least just the one’?”

“We’re like swans.”

The Man stared back, incredulous. _“Swans?”_

“Yeah.” Ratbag crooked a smile at him. “’Cause swans mate for life. You’ve got Ratbag, Ranger. Means now you’re stuck with him.”

Ratbag went up onto his toes, and brushed his mouth slowly against Talion’s, revelling in the feel of his lips and the scratch of his stubble, and the warm scent of his skin. “You don’t have to bother ‘wooing’ Ratbag,” he told him. “What you’ve got to do next is just to _follow it through.”_

“Hmmph.” The Ranger’s breath rushed out in a familiar, half-pleased, half-exasperated sounding exhale. He picked Ratbag up, his large, powerful hands grasping either side of the Orc’s waist, and set him on the low rampart wall in front of him. Ratbag immediately twisted his arms around his neck and pulled him close, and then, for good measure, clasped his legs to Talion’s waist too. He shoved his face into the angle of the Ranger’s jaw and clung to him, trembling.

“Ratbag.” His companion’s tone was warm as he extracted Ratbag’s head from where it was hidden against his jaw. “Now, don’t tell me you’re also afraid of heights.”

He shook his head. “No Ranger.” ‘’Cause Ratbag knows you’d never drop him.’ “But, Ratbag _is_ a bit afraid, how much he wants you…”

Talion tilted the Orc’s face up, fingers on his chin. “What’s to be afraid of, in that, Ratbag?”

What was there for Ratbag to be afraid of? “Everything!” he cried. Two tears welled up, spilled out, and ran down either side of his face. ‘Because you’re _everything_ , to him.’ With an effort, he did his best to get a hold of himself. “And Ratbag appreciates… he does appreciate all the effort you’ve gone to, Ranger.” ‘Especially,’ he thought, ‘as he’d have been happy enough with you just pushing him up against a wall and bringing him off with your hand shoved down his breeches…’ “It’s just he maybe… misread what you were doing, didn’t he?”

“You wanted me to give you a clearer signal of my intentions,” Talion said. _Damn him._ Ratbag could see the effort he was making in order to carefully keep his face straight. “Is that it?”

“Yes! There’s no use in you playing your cards close.” By now Talion had closed the small amount of distance that remained between them. It was only that, that was distracting him. “No point in being all… _ambiguous_ is there? About… things. Oh! Talion!”

All coherent thoughts went out of Ratbag’s head at that point, because the Ranger had started kissing him. One of his hands rested on the Orc’s jaw, holding his head steady, the other clasped into the small of his back, pulling him close against him.

Oh, but he was _good_ at this. Talion’s caresses started out soft, and slow. First with his thumb tracing back and forth along the line of Ratbag’s mouth, pausing at the lower corner, to feel and rotate one of the iron rings that Ratbag had piercing him. Ah ha! Ratbag thought so! More than once he’d caught himself wondering about that, about the way his Ranger had always seemed more than a little fascinated by those things. After his thumb he followed with his lips. And, yes, they felt wonderful: soft, smooth, pliant – not like Ratbag’s. He knew his were ugly, thick and scar-twisted. If he was honest it worried him, on Talion’s behalf: what it must be like for the Ranger having no other choice but to touch him?

But Talion didn’t seem to mind at all. Framing Ratbag’s face with his hands he kept on brushing his lips against Ratbag’s, nudging and kissing the Orc’s mouth open; deepening his kisses, drawing him in until Ratbag was dizzy with it.

He looked Ratbag in the eyes and kept his eyes fixed on him as at last they moved apart. The earnest, honest weight of his stare no burden at all to him.

They both knew it was time. “Follow Ratbag, Ranger. ” Taking his companion by the hand he led him off the battlements and through to the anteroom. Here! In front of the fire - this would do. There was a hearth-rug. Ratbag sat down on it. It was made of caragor-fur, he noted: nice and thick to catch the sparks. Its winter coat. Good and thick enough to be a cushion for Ratbag’s back: or, if the Ranger wanted to place him on his front, for Ratbag’s hands and knees. Whichever way Talion might wish to take him. Yes. They’d be safe together here. No-one else would see.

The Ranger’s stance, meanwhile, looked awkward. He cleared his throat. “Next door,” began, “is a bedroom…”

Ratbag shook his head.

He tried again. “I’ve put fresh linen…”

“No, Ranger! Ratbag can’t wait any longer.” Pulling him by the hand he drew him, insistently, down beside him. ‘Ratbag wants you. He wants you!’ “Please, can’t it be here?” he said. The Orc, meanwhile, had already wriggled himself out of his breeches and jerkin; his fingers clumsy with anticipation, he knelt at Talion’s side, trying to help him do the same. 

The shirt went off over the top of his head.

There. _There._ Expanses of smooth skin warmly lit by firelight. The flat planes of muscles on his stomach and torso, each one of them fine-cut and clearly delineated; the strength and sense of restrained power in the bulk of his shoulders and arms. And yet, balanced against all of that, the Ranger’s wide, soft eyes and his hesitant pose. Talion was just, exactly, as Ratbag had remembered.

And all in all, he still made up the most beautiful sight…

Without another moment’s hesitation, Ratbag pushed himself, bodily, into his companion’s lap. There was not a stitch of clothing left on him and – give or take – he was naked and clean as the day he’d been spawned.

But with an important difference. He was beset by none of the muzzy-headed befuddlement that would’ve been typical for an Orc fresh from the vat. Ratbag knew what he was after, and just how to get it. Taking hold of Talion’s hand he pushed it down into his groin and rubbed himself against it, encouraging Talion to take hold of him.

The Ranger’s breath huffed out. Surprise and amusement at his brazenness, no doubt. The Orc felt him murmuring against his cheek. “Ratbag! But you’re all…”

 _Wet._ What of it? Perhaps it happened sometimes: that Ratbag’s stick, when he was feeling very excited, might… leak.

That _never_ happened. He had never been this excited before.

Ratbag brought the Ranger’s hand up to his mouth and, looking up at him from under heavy eyelids he kissed and nibbled at the loose web of skin between Talion’s thumb and forefinger, cleaning his own fluids off from him.

He could tell that his companion liked seeing that, too.

Ratbag lay on his back, feverish at the sight of him. Then he used himself for Talion, in an utterly shameless display. Ratbag opened his legs to show him his neat little upstanding stick - that wasn’t _that_ little; and thrust with his hips and made his bollocks bounce for him prettily. He penetrated himself with wet fingers. He kept his eyes locked on Talion’s all through it, making sure he was watching, and played with himself as he sucked on the Ranger’s fingers, one hand plucking, pinching, squeezing his own nipples, the other stroking at his cock.

The Ranger looked on, looking aghast, yet at the same time somehow unable to tear his eyes away. The truth was that he looked mesmerised by what he was seeing, completely. 

There. How did he like _that,_ for Ratbag warming to him?

Then he shifted Talion’s hand from his mouth to the place he most wanted him: showed him how to move his fingers, how to push past the tight ring of muscle, then slip and slide them in and out. Slippery wetness. _In and out._ Ratbag let his head drop back, and his eyes fluttered shut as he revelled in the pleasurable sensations. To be with Talion like this, at last; to have him touching him there…

“Ratbag?” his companion sounded deeply uncertain, as if he truly had no idea how very much Ratbag wanted, and for just how long he’d been waiting for this. “Are you _sure_ you want me to…?”

Any doubts he might have had over Talion’s willingness to partake in what Ratbag was…offering were allayed the moment he took one look at him. He might have been trying to hide it with his oh-so-nonchalantly upraised leg, but the Ranger’s spear-shaft was standing proud and hard as _wood._

“Yes Ranger,” Ratbag answered breathlessly, “Oh, _yes.”_ He thrashed from side to side as much as he was able: arched his back off the floor as far as he could go to try to get to him. “Ratbag knows he’s an eager little thing, but please, _please_ don’t make him beg.”

‘Because he absolutely _will_ beg,’ Ratbag thought, ‘if you want him to…’

“Here, then.” The grudgingly amused tone and, more than that, the affection he could hear in Talion’s voice were almost overwhelming.

“Oh yes, please,” he whispered as the Man took himself in hand, fumbled for a moment, and -

“…”

“… _!_ ”

“ _Ratbag_. You’re going to have to - help,” Talion said. He was beyond chagrined. “This is - new to me, and I don’t…”

The Orc was quick to show the way. “There you go Ranger.” _There_. Using his hands to guide him, he helped Talion to ease his way into him, the Ranger moving slowly, and with utmost restraint and care.

Truth be told, as far as Ratbag was concerned, he could’ve afforded to be quite a bit _more_ forceful about it. But if he had been the kind of Man who wanted to take him, and claim him like that, he wouldn’t exactly have been the Ranger who Ratbag knew and loved, would he?

Ratbag spread his legs wide, wider: splayed thighs trembling with tension to encourage, and welcome him. He wanted his Ranger. Couldn’t wait another moment. He needed him _this instant_ …

At last his magnificent length was lodged all the way inside.

 _Finally!_ The Orc rested back a little, as some of his fever of anxiousness and anticipation began to subside. He hadn’t done this for some time. And yes, that meant that there was some discomfort. But the sensation was also giving way to something else, to soft sparks of aching pleasure, too.

Talion’s mouth had fallen open in surprise. His eyes went wide and his lips trembled as his breath puffed in and out of him in little shuddering fits and starts. “Oh Ratbag.” He dropped his head onto the Orc’s shoulder. _“Oh.”_ His lips found Ratbag’s and he kissed him. His mouth felt very warm and gentle, and soft.

Ratbag whimpered with pleasure. He kissed him back frantically and clung and strained towards him.

He could feel Talion smiling against his face, then his mouth moving against his skin and when he said: “Ratbag? You really _did_ want me like this, didn’t you?” There wasn’t a trace of arrogance or self-satisfaction in his voice. Nor was he attempting to score points. On the contrary: he sounded rueful and astonished, more than anything.

Ratbag couldn’t do much more to reply than give him a foolish grin.

The Ranger was holding himself up with some of his weight on his elbows, gauging Ratbag’s response. He enjoyed watching his reactions and the Orc knew, without consciously thinking the thought, that that was part of it, an important aspect of what they were doing, for him. Ratbag could understand that easily enough. He liked looking at Talion too: watching the way he moved; the breadth of his body and his open, honest face. The handsomeness of which he was at all times so perfectly unaware, that ran so much deeper than the surface of his skin.

But Ratbag was only a low-ranked Uruk; an Orc with dirt in his hair and ugly scars on his skin. What on earth could Talion possibly see when he looked at him?

Then Talion thrust into him, harder, and for a glorious moment all his doubts, together with any coherent thoughts of anything else were driven right out of Ratbag’s head. The way he was moving had set in place an exquisitely pleasurable wave of sensation, directly connecting the point where Talion was igniting those flashes of feeling on the inside to Ratbag’s hard stick and his aching bollocks too.

Having managed to convince himself, at last, that Ratbag really was on board with what they were doing, Talion was finally allowing himself to find some of his rhythm. In so doing he was almost completely attuned to the Orc’s reactions, of course. It was Ratbag setting the pace; Ratbag who determined the style and speed and depth of penetration with which Talion was fucking him. Long, scathingly delicious screwing movements with his hips interspersed with series of shorter, more powerful thrusts. The Ranger was intent and utterly focused on his partner’s pleasure, and really, what else could Ratbag have expected from a tall, dark, and intense Tark bastard like him?

They were both far-gone by this time. The Ranger’s eyes looking down on him were dark with desire and he was giving himself away by the breathless gasps, and bitten-back noises of pleasure that were escaping him. Ratbag clung to him, revelling in it. He could barely bring himself to move or think far beyond the heady thought that in his current state, he wouldn’t so much be able to come under his own efforts as have Talion push his release right out of him. He knew it couldn’t be long. Any moment now he’d come, Iying impaled on the Ranger’s spear-shaft, and all the while with Talion watching.

Suddenly his head had cleared. But that wouldn’t do! What would it take to tip Talion over the edge and into his own orgasm along with him?

So he bunched his fists in a double-handful of Talion’s hair and hauled his head round to face him. Looking him straight in the eyes he spoke to him, urgently. “You know that thing Ratbag said. That you’ve got him for life? Well, it’s true. Means he’s saved himself and there’s no-one else. Never _will_ be anyone else.”

He knew at once that he’d done the right thing. Talion had liked hearing what he’d said, Ratbag could tell. He’d enjoyed hearing that _very much,_ indeed.

Talion’s caught his breath in surprise. He stopped, halting in mid-stroke and regarded Ratbag with a soft, puzzled look, from mere inches away. The muscles of his thighs and flanks were tense and quivering as he searched the Orc’s face.

And Ratbag meant it with all his heart when he told him, “He doesn’t want - he’ll never want _anyone_ but you.”

“Oh, _Ratbag._ ” All at once the Orc found himself being gathered up and squeezed against Talion’s breast, and the Ranger’s mouth was pressing onto Ratbag’s, kissing his mouth and his jaw and the sides of his face with frantic, hasty kisses, kissing all over him. One of his strong, capable arms clasped round Ratbag’s shoulders, lifting his back off the floor, the other stayed braced on the ground, supporting the weight for both of them. All of Talion’s usual composure was gone as he strained himself, mightily against him. Ratbag strained back. He twined his arms round the Ranger’s neck and wrapped his legs around his hips, clinging on, as if for life, and for a moment there was nothing but an almost unbearable sense of pressure, and heat and friction between them.

Abruptly, the tension broke. As Talion buried his head in the angle of his shoulder, Ratbag felt the powerful pulse and spasms of the Ranger’s release beginning on the inside. Quiet and understated to the end, his companion didn’t make much noise, uttering only a soft, agonised-sounding groan – and even that sounding as if it had more or less forced its way out of him. And yet in his low, breathless tones, Ratbag was sure he could make out words: Ratbag’s name, gasped out with desperate, halting intensity, over and over.

That alone would’ve been enough to finish him and as Talion drove into him with a few last, clumsily urgent thrusts the rush of Ratbag’s own climax overtook him completely. He pushed himself down on Talion, jerked and rubbed his miserable erection onto him, wriggling with sordid sensation in his own fluids, slippery and slick where he was already spilling them against the base of the Ranger’s stomach. Wracked by convulsive jolts of pleasure he was coming with Talion inside and around him, coming babbling nonsense, promising Talion the world, himself, and everything in it, forever.

*

Afterwards, Ratbag wasn’t sure of the form. Now the deed was done and so forth, would he be given his marching orders? Should he expect to be summarily dismissed anytime soon?

He decided that it would be best if he was to take his cues from Talion; and his companion, at least, didn’t seem much inclined to move. He lay on his back on the fur, looking exhausted and happy, with spatters and smears of Ratbag’s ejaculate cooling on his stomach all the while. Now, it wasn’t that the Orc didn’t very much enjoy the sight of Talion like this - sated; debauched - because he _did_. And yet…something about this picture seemed off-kilter to him.

Perhaps in a housekeeping sense?

‘Something,’ he thought, ‘really ought to be done about…the mess. And it probably should be Ratbag doing it.’ That was only fair, seeing how he had been responsible for generating at least half of it. So Ratbag knelt down beside Talion, bowed his head low over his belly, licked up a generous tongueful of his own release and swallowed it.

As he did so Talion’s breath puffed out of him as if he’d taken a punch to the stomach. He jerked up into a half-sitting position, propped on his elbows with gaze fixed on Ratbag. He clearly couldn’t take his eyes off him.

‘Oh-ho! Now, who’d’ve thought? The dodgy _bugger!_ Well, doesn’t _this_ change things!’ Ratbag thought gleefully. ‘…Want to see Ratbag doing it again?’ With a wicked grin he bent his head over Talion’s midsection once more, but barely had the chance to open his lips before he found himself being gathered up into his companion’s arms.

“No,” the Ranger told him. “You needn’t. Here. Take this.”

From somewhere he’d somehow obtained a folded square of clean fabric which he now used to blot, briskly, between Ratbag’s thighs and across his seat.

‘Cleaning his own spend from where it’s seeping out.’ The heady thought set butterflies to fluttering in the pit of the Orc’s stomach.

Talion dragged the cloth in a perfunctory stroke across his own belly, before casting it aside.

“Now where’d _that_ come from?”

“Dinner table.” Talion nodded towards the doorway that opened onto the battlements. “Cloth napkins,” he explained. “After all, ‘A Ranger of Gondor is always prepared.’”

“You telling Ratbag that’s the Rangers’ motto, is it?”

Talion smiled. “Something like it.” His fingers stroked little circles on the Orc’s shoulder. “Ratbag. Stay with me,” he said. “I can do better, I promise.”

“Better than what?” Ratbag asked him in confusion, cocking his head on one side.

“Well. I told you I wanted to take my time with you but…” he broke off, looking abashed, “…that wasn’t taking my time. A spell of abstinence will do that, I suppose.”

“‘Abstinence?’ Talion? Now how long have you been _abstaining_ for?”

Talion seemed eager to evade the question. “Up until now it’s not a subject to which I’ve given a great deal of thought, Ratbag. I’m sure it must’ve been quite a while.”

“Meaning…?”

Talion lay back, folding his arms under his head as he considered it. “In that case,” he said, colouring up a little, “I suppose, not properly - _as such_ \- since that night, after the Assassin. That time you told me about when,” breaking off he was careful to avoid Ratbag’s gaze, “when you ’happened upon’ me, I suppose.”

“And, since then, you…haven’t ?” Ratbag was incredulous. He could barely conceive of it, because surely that had to count as going against – against nature itself, didn’t it? “In all that time?” he exclaimed. “Ranger! But why didn’t you?”

Talion’s tone was very dry. “For one thing, I’ve been otherwise occupied.”

Ratbag thought over the implications of what he’d just said. “You’re saying you’ve been _too busy?”_

“Exactly!” Then with a straitlaced look but a smile in his voice Talion added “You know, Ratbag, the Dark Lord’s armies aren’t likely to suddenly start defeating themselves.” Abruptly his expression changed. “And the Elf-Lord was always something of a… constant presence.”

“Celebrimbor?” The Orc blinked at him for a moment, bemused. “Talion? That Glow-in-the-Dark git, he… wouldn’t _let_ you, would he?”

“Only with the best of intentions,” the Ranger sighed. “He spoke at length about the need for fortitude. About our higher purpose. He was at pains to point out my in-born weakness and moral failings as a merely mortal Man that together, we could overcome.”

“‘Merely mortal’?” Ratbag seethed. “But you’re _not_ mortal anymore though, are you?” ‘Since we all know it was that Elvish _fuck_ himself put paid to that.’

Talion answered, mildly, “Celebrimbor’s intent was to keep me focused on our task. He meant well, I’m sure.”

‘And Ratbag’s sure that that controlling prick _didn’t!’_ “But you put your foot down this time, didn’t you?”

“Well Ratbag,” the Ranger replied, giving him a lopsided smile, “he always said I’ve a blind spot, when it comes to you.”

“He doesn’t like you going against him, not in anything. Ratbag thinks you should be careful.” 

Talion didn’t reply.

“Have you ever stood up to him, about _anything_ , before?” A chill of foreboding ran through Ratbag and the little Orc shuddered, despite the warmth of the fire. It felt like a hellhawk swooping over his grave. “Talion. He’s going to make you pay for this!”

***


	19. Cirith Ungol

*

Ratbag awoke with a gasp, shivering: he’d thrown his blanket off, sometime in the night, in the midst of his restless sleep. 

But what he noticed most of all, was firstly that his belly was still wet with cooling smears of his own come, and secondly that he was - as always - alone.

He heaved a ragged sigh, not even bothering to wipe himself clean, and just hauled his rumpled bedding up over himself again: the fur he’d carried all the way from the Tribe’s caves. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, hiding from his own solitude, shutting it out in favour of inhaling long and slow, drinking deeply of the scents surrounding him: the mingled mustiness of caragor fur and the musk of his own release. That aroma allowed him to linger, just a little while longer, in the lost world of his dream: in the passion and tenderness of the memory’s climax. That was infinitely preferable to the memory’s chilling coda, and to the loneliness of the waking world.

He remembered, too, that caragor skin had played a part, both in his first discovery that Talion had wanted him, and in the final proof of the Man’s desire.

Of course, it was no accident at all that - in a tribe of Ferals who clad themselves in the hides of all manner of beasts, from patchwork rat hides all the way up to ice graug pelt - Ratbag had chosen caragor fur to wrap his body in, when he lay down to sleep.

*

Several days later, Ratbag left the plateau of Gorgoroth behind, and he spent several days more climbing ever higher into the foothills of the Ephel Dúath, the Mountains of Shadow on Mordor’s western border. Such a climb would’ve been a daunting prospect to his former self, accustomed mostly to Mordor’s plains; but having recently become so intimately acquainted with the much higher and sheerer, and far colder Seregost ranges, Ratbag managed to scale this rugged but ice-free mountain terrain without too much trouble.

Once he reached the pass of Cirith Ungol, he decided not to risk any attacks on the Uruks there. Instead, he kept strictly to the remotest outskirts of Cirith Ungol’s network of caverns, maintaining as much distance as possible between himself and Darz-ghûrum, the capital fortress, as well as other centres of Uruk population, such as the fighting pits. This caution was, of course, essential: he could afford to be spotted there even less than usual, since the cramped environment of the tunnels would severely limit his options for escape from any pursuit.

Though Ratbag had called a temporary halt to his one-Orc war against the soldiers of the Eye in favour of as rapid a transit through the caves as possible, so he glimpsed only solitary Uruk travellers from a distance en route, his journey was still far from uneventful. In the outlying tunnels where few Uruks went, other creatures lurked in correspondingly greater numbers, and all too often Ratbag had to scramble for dear life onto high outcrops, and fire an absolute rain of arrows down on screeching, spitting packs of ghûls. Once, faced with a particularly large horde of ghûls, he’d even been reduced to slinging rocks, after his arrows gave out. When these pitched battles were finally over and the last of the stragglers had fled, Ratbag was forced to fumble in his pack with poison-numb hands, for the antidote which he’d fortunately brewed prior to entering the tunnels. With each desperate gulp of the herbal elixir, he silently thanked the memory of Talion, who’d taught him that formula, as well as all the other useful brews he knew: tonics and toxins both.

*

Ratbag’s resolution to stay away from the Orcs had paid off, at least in terms of speed: even though he’d chosen the outermost tunnels, which added a good deal of distance to his route, he’d made it at least three-quarters of the way through the caverns, before his luck finally ran out.

This time his foes were not ghûls, but spiders: the ever-present threat for which the whole region was named. Like the labyrinth of dismal passages he’d been hurrying through without a moment’s rest, the swarm that came for him seemed endless: black-and-yellow bodies thronged so thickly they hid the ground from view, hissing and snapping their jaws; a solid, seething mass converging on him with utter singlemindedness, leaping over each other in their eagerness to attack.

Ratbag fought like a demon, firing at the front of the oncoming wave until the last of his arrows were spent, then dropping his bow and drawing his dagger, slashing left and right in razor arcs. Every arrow, every stroke felled spiders, but for each one that fell, ten more leapt at him over the twitching corpses.

Then they were upon him.

Hooked feet and hairy bodies thudded into his back, onto his shoulders, climbed his legs, clung to his arms, weighing them down. The low snarl of fury that had torn from Ratbag’s throat all the while as he fought, rose to a final yell of defiance and despair as the clinging mass of the ever-growing pile of bristly bodies bore him to his knees, then flat to the dirt. Every scrap of his skin crawled with horrified anticipation of the first deadly bite, and the tenth, and the hundredth.

But no bites came.

Instead Ratbag was instantly tangled in such a deluge of web that his war-cry choked off in an ignominious, air-starved gurgle. He was seized by a thousand tiny talons, picked up and spun with dizzying speed in midair. He struggled and kicked frantically, futilely, as he was wrapped around and around in swathes of webbing that bound his legs together and his arms tight to his body until at last he was cocooned thickly, as stiff as a rigor-bound corpse. Even his head had not been spared: films of sticky white fell over his eyes and reflex forced him to close them. The layers over his mouth stuck to his tongue and tasted bitter and vile as he chewed at them in a frenzy of blind panic, until he realised he’d torn them just thin enough to breathe through.

He panted desperately for air, feeling the torn edges flutter against his lips, and the next moment he felt himself hoisted up and borne with eerie speed and smoothness along tunnels that, through the layers of webbing over his ears, faintly echoed the chitinous skitter of countless spiders.

Wide awake.

Helpless.

*

After the spiders set him down, lying on a flat rock floor, and the last scrabbling of their feet faded into absolute silence, Ratbag found it difficult to track the passage of time, blinded and half-deafened as he was, unable to move a finger or even draw a deep breath, so tightly bound was he. All around him was the silence and the inevitable damp stone smell of the deep underground. He tried to feel encouraged that he could catch no stink of rotting flesh, and none of the acrid reek of poison that hung always around the spiders like a noxious cloud. But in his current plight, he could hardly fool himself into a cheerful outlook. Instead, it seemed all too likely that the spiders had simply filled their previous larder, and he was just the first prey to stock a new one.

Eventually, as time continued to drag on - Hours? Days? Who knew? - Ratbag’s pounding heart slowed, and his frantic gasping for air eased, as monotony, of all things, set in, followed by a bone-deep weariness. Helpless, hopeless, he resigned himself to his eventual fate, whatever _that_ would be: perhaps to be eaten slowly alive, perhaps to die slowly of thirst. 

What the fuck else could he do?

Perhaps the bitter-tasting webbing he’d chewed through had some toxin on it after all, whose delayed action drove him into a delirious daze. Perhaps, worn out by the exertion of combat and by adrenaline crash, he simply slept, and dreamed strange dreams.

*

The sticky white haze over Ratbag’s vision slowly cleared, like a damp winter fog, sluggishly lifting. 

And She was there.

She looked like a she-Tark, or maybe even a she-Elf, not that Ratbag had ever seen either up close before, and hair hid her ears so he couldn’t tell the difference. But, Ratbag realised, it didn’t matter which She looked like anyway, because She bloody well _wasn’t_ either of those, not really! Ratbag just _knew_ this, instantly, instinctively, the way you always knew things in dreams.

She was something much… much _bigger_ than any Tark or Elf: maybe much better, maybe much worse. Bigger, and stronger, and older.

And She was _looking_ right _at_ him. Looking _into_ him.

It felt almost like Talion’s hand (Celebrimbor’s hand?) on his face: just the gentlest touch of fingertips, yet it set his soul ablaze with a brilliant light, in which nothing of his deepest self could be hidden.

This time, there was no light. But She needed none. She was more comfortable in shadow, was skilled at seeing into the darkest of corners.

Her voice was a low, amused drawl, cultured and cool. “So, I was right. You _are_ the one he needs.” A slow smirk curved pink lips. “Fate crosses my path in ever-smaller and less-likely packages. Next will be creatures almost too insignificant to notice at all.”

Then the intent in those green eyes grew impossibly sharper and more focused. “I grant you, and him, safe passage in perpetuity through my halls. Go now to him, as swiftly as you may; already the path he has chosen has brought him to the brink of the precipice, and without you, he will surely fall.” The smirk widened slightly, shifting a bit closer to a smile. “Tell him, when you see him, that when he comes, my children will fight on his side.”

‘Whoever _“he”_ is!’ The phrase flitted through Ratbag’s mind, and was gone as quickly as it came. It was utterly unimportant, as questions of logic always were in dreams.

Then the fog swelled again, a whiteness all encompassing, blinding; under its clinging damp weight Ratbag sank into darkness.

*

When Ratbag opened his eyes again, he was gobsmacked to find himself staring up into the open sky, watching wisps of cloud glow pink in the light of a new dawn. He was lying just outside a dark crevice in the rock, and to his further astonishment, there was not a single strand of webbing anywhere on his body. His pack was lying beside him, as was the bow he’d dropped in his last frantic, despairing fight, and there were even a few arrows, with slime still clinging to their points. When he staggered to his feet and looked around him, blinking in the brightening sunrise, he saw with dazed disbelief that he’d been left in the closest concealment to a narrow, overgrown trail, which zigzagged away before him, down the western side of the Ephel Dúath into Morgul Vale.

Those sodding spiders must’ve carried him all the rest of the way through the tunnels, and hid him here, along with all his gear!

Cirith Ungol was behind him, and he was alive, and he was free!

Ratbag shouldered his pack, slung his bow across his back, wiped his arrows off and stashed them, and started off along the trail without further ado, striding down the slope toward the forest-fringed valley of the river Morgulduin: at this early hour still a shadowy, steep-sided bowl half filled with strangely familiar-looking white mist.

*


	20. Minas Morgul

*

The trail Ratbag followed from the crevice where the spiders had left him, was obviously long-disused: choked with undergrowth, the footing slippery with mud under thick beds of dew-wet moss. By mid-morning he found the reason why: a rockslide had wiped out part of the trail, burying it under a broad wash of loose scree. Luckily for him, the rockslide had happened long enough ago that a thin coating of weeds had partially stabilised the rubble. Still, traversing it was tricky work: he had to kick off his sandals and tie them to his pack, then stretch out on his belly to hug the slope, clawing new handholds and footholds with every move, crawling slowly sideways across the rockfall like a cautious crab.

As Ratbag stretched and strained and sweated, he consoled himself with the thought that all this work meant that, for the first time since he’d left the Tribe’s valley, at least he didn’t have to keep looking and listening for other travellers along this particular route.

Once he’d reached the other side of the rockslide, Ratbag stood and refastened his sandals. Ahead, the mist that had filled the bottom of the steeply-cut valley at dawn had risen closer to his elevation and partially dispersed as noon drew near, until what was once an impenetrable fog was now only a rapidly-thinning veil over his sight.

At first Ratbag thought his eyes were deceiving him after the long dark of Cirith Ungol’s tunnels, but now as he stood peering intently down into the valley, he was certain of it: the mist was no longer that blank, opaque white.

Now it was _green_. It wasn’t simply the sombre deep green of the conifers that clung to the sides of the vale wherever the plunging cliff faces were broken enough to hold tree roots. No, this green was a _glow:_ a faint, wavering radiance.

And Ratbag had seen that exact hue glowing once before. The sight of it took him back: all the way back to, as he’d said to Ar-Zey the morning they met, ‘those slavers, and the cannibals, and the necromancer, and that cage.’ Specifically, to the necromancer - Zog the Eternal, as he’d called himself when Ratbag first woke after being hit by the Hammer - and the emerald flare of his magic, animating his undead minions.

Necromantic magic.

Though he’d grown inured to the deepest Seregost snows, as he descended the trail Ratbag still shivered when clinging damp fog, green-lit from below, wound itself around him like a shroud.

*

As Ratbag emerged from the layer of fog and came to a westward bend in the path, his determined strides ground to a halt and he simply stood, staring out across the valley. The glow behind the fog had been an ominous warning, as had the rumours that the Witch-King had left his mark on this city when he’d conquered it, but nothing could have really prepared Ratbag for his first sight of the Tower of Minas Morgul.

Not only the spire piercing the sky so dizzyingly high above the city, but the entire keep around it - from its gate to the far side of its encircling wall, from its lowest foundations to the bitter peaks of its summit - every stone was ablaze with eldritch emerald. Necromantic power formed a nimbus of green glare that utterly overwhelmed the ordinary light of sun and moon, and tongues of mystic flame taller than any Olog could reach leapt and writhed amid the spikes of its battlements.

The immense scale of this constant outpouring of magic, for no obvious purpose beyond simple defense, shocked Ratbag into stillness, froze his Wanderer’s feet to the ground as he stood and gaped. Mount Doom in full eruption wouldn’t have stunned him quite like this: eruption was what volcanoes did naturally. Even the Eye, for all it had made Ratbag blaze with enough hatred to power his Vow of revenge, hadn’t overawed him with what seemed an arrogant waste of magical power.

Ratbag finally managed to tear his transfixed gaze away from that eerie beacon. His glance strayed westward, following the meandering outflow of the Morgulduin to where it joined the distant silver thread of the Anduin. On the other side of that river, he could just make out the pyramidal white mass of the Tarks’ tower and city: the rumoured twin of Minas Morgul. At that sight, Ratbag abruptly realised that the sorcerous blaze that he’d thought astonishingly wasteful, had another purpose after all. It wasn’t just a defence: its light was a message, a warning to Gondor, especially to the city that faced them across the water.

With that thought, the last of Ratbag’s initial shock dissipated, and he finally started to think strategically. Beyond the inner keep, the uncanny fire abruptly ceased, though its cold green hue tinged the light all over the maze of stone buildings - several times larger than any capital fortress - that made up the city itself. The same as any fortress, the city had a high, battlemented perimeter wall - stone like everything else - with only a single gate, opening onto a bridge which further limited access.

‘Only a brainless glob would try to get in that way,’ Ratbag thought, before his gaze abandoned the narrow bridge and heavily guarded gate, tracking along the top of the battlemented wall. Interestingly, that wall covered only the western side of the city: the buildings were enclosed on the other three sides by the tall cliffs of Morgul Vale, and by the dark water of the Morgulduin, curving around the edge of the city from the waterfall at the south to the outflow westward beneath the bridge. 

So, since the only obvious way in was out of the question, what did that leave? Ratbag’s restless gaze raked one expanse of sheer stony cliffs after another, from the northern fringe of the city, to the eastern edge. There! At the far edge of the city, that huge circular building. Unlike all the other structures, that one’s flat roof backed directly onto the cliffs, and even better, the cliff face above it was one of the few that wasn’t just a sheer, impassable wall of stone. Instead it was broken into narrow crevices whose slopes were gradual enough to hold stands of trees: more than enough cover for a solitary Orc.

From that promising point Ratbag’s carefully assessing stare tracked back toward himself, tracing the slopes with a climber’s intent attention to the layout of cracks and easier inclines breaking up the steeper slopes, planning his path. Again and again he traced and retraced the track with his gaze, until he nodded to himself, satisfied that he had the most climbable route memorised.

Then, decision made, he left the disused trail behind and struck out cross-country, intent on skirting the fringes of the city among its circling cliffs, his meandering path tending always toward the easier terrain above that strange circular building in the distance.

*

It was just after nightfall by the time Ratbag descended the last tree-shrouded slope, and stood staring down at the titanic stone ring of the building’s flat roof. From this height, he could easily see down into its roofless core, and now that he could do so, the formerly-mysterious building’s purpose was clear to him.

It was a fighting pit, but one on a scale that made even the most famous of Mordor’s fighting pits look, well, pitiful. Instead of just one storey of wood, barely high enough to contain caragor cages, this arena was entirely of stone, flattened and tiled and even carved, and stretching three storeys high, with each storey tall enough to hold Olog-hai with ease! Rows and rows of stone benches surrounded the central ring: a quick scan told Ratbag they would have seated many hundreds. And that was just the lowest storey!

Ratbag frowned, deeply disturbed by this obvious proof that Menfolk weren’t merely the snivelling milksops every Uruk and Orc and Olog believed they were. They’d built this gigantic fighting pit and flocked to it, to watch fights in crowds that even the largest Uruk-hai pit could never hold. Ratbag imagined that huge stone ring reverberating to the usual roars of blood-crazed Uruk audiences, then tried to imagine that noise ten times, maybe a hundred times louder, but he was distracted by wondering what Tark roars would sound like.

 _Could_ they even roar? So many times, he’d heard Talion snarl and grunt and yell in combat, and scream when… But he’d never heard a real full-throated Uruk-hai roar from Talion, not even once, no matter what the poor Man was going through. Ratbag dismissed this unanswerable question with a sigh, and the thought - poignant on so many levels - that ‘At least that was one thing we had in common.’

Then Ratbag clambered over the last mossy boulders and jumped down onto the flat roof of the huge fighting pit’s topmost storey. Several of the arches of that top tier had been broken - most likely by siege equipment during the Witch-King’s conquest - and their rubble hadn’t yet been cleared from the tier below. The uneven stone of the broken arches made for an easier climb down from the roof than the smooth blocks everywhere else, and once Ratbag was safely down on the third level, he started sneaking down the wide, curving stairs, clinging to the shadows and watching and listening warily.

Fortunately for Ratbag, the fighting pit was almost deserted; only a small number of Defenders and Archers and Hunters idled around, a few making bored attempts at patrols, but most were lounging around on the benches or walkways, chatting among themselves. As he circled the building, making his stealthy way from one staircase to another, he paused behind pillars or archways from time to time, listening in on some of these conversations. But to his disappointment, they sounded just like any other Uruk-hai anywhere else in Mordor, whiling away the time between duties. Ratbag heard no mention of any rebellion, much less whether said rebellion was led by Overlord, Warchief or Captain - or Nazgûl.

*

At last Ratbag made it to ground level, immediately sprinting from one shadow to another across the wide courtyard beyond, then diving for the concealment of a long hedgerow bordering the river; grateful for the high waterfall nearby where the Morgulduin flowed into the Vale, since its constant thunder no doubt helped drown out any stray sounds he might’ve made in his mad dashes from one hiding spot to the next.

The rest of the Tark city was just as strange to Ratbag as that huge fighting pit had been. All the buildings were solidly made, of pale stone that had not only been polished smooth, but often intricately carved and even decorated with colourful banners. Statues were also common: most were larger than life, like Tribe symbols or Mystic totems, and as Ratbag had expected, most of them depicted Tarks (always armed and armoured, of course) or she-Tarks (always robed and carrying large pots, for whatever weird reason only Tarks - or she-Tarks - knew). But some of the statues were more of a surprise: their stone was black rather than the usual white and pale grey, and they portrayed crouching creatures like some weird crossbreed of Uruk and drake. What made Ratbag suspect most that these monstrous statues had been added after the fall of the city, was the way their eyes shone with the same emerald glow as the Tower, giving their snarling faces an oddly watchful look.

These strange sculptures aside, Ratbag could see how the Tark city might’ve been beautiful once, but right now everything was in a sadly ruined state. Flames even lingered here and there in the gutted buildings, their orange still more lurid than usual amid the everpresent green from the Tower. The wreckage all too clearly showed the aftereffects of the Witch-King’s conquest.

Or did it? ‘Wouldn’t fires from that attack have burned out by now?’ Hope surged suddenly in Ratbag as he wondered for the first time whether at least some of this damage might’ve been the result of a much more recent battle: the rebellion that by all accounts had managed to drive the Witch-King and the other Nazgûl from the city.

As Ratbag passed through the ruins like a ghost through a cemetery, slipping from one hiding place to the next, he paused wherever he could, to eavesdrop on the Uruks’ and Ologs’ conversations. His desperation was growing more intense with each passing minute, rapidly becoming obsession. He’d travelled who knew how many leagues; he’d endured the hardships of the road and the risk of discovery and death and _worse_ ; he’d run the horrendous gauntlet of Cirith Ungol; all to hear _some_ solid news of this city’s rebellion, the rumour of which had spread like wildfire across the whole width of Mordor.

What the fuck was going on? Was anything going on?

Everywhere Ratbag looked, the city was quiet: its Uruk and Olog inhabitants ambling here and there chatting idly, or gathered in celebration around grog barrels and cook fires. There was no aura of urgency, no sense that the city was a solitary stronghold of rebels deranged or desperate enough to take on all the rest of Mordor, the Ringwraiths (terrible enemies, whether they were Nine or only Eight), and the Eye itself: the burning wrath of Sauron and the cold callousness of Celebrimbor, combined into a creature of concentrated malice whose sole goal was the conquest of Middle-Earth.

Instead, the abandoned, green-lit city had the incongruous air of a _resort:_ a place of rest and relaxation for its population. The sight of large squads of Uruk-hai and Olog-hai soldiers from all of the Nine Tribes, and even their various Captains - who should have been bitter rivals campaigning murderously for more followers or territory or loot - all inhabiting that maze of alien streets together: not only without any of the usual backbiting and brawling, but actually _getting along_ , as if the whole damn lot of them were blood-brothers, or what was that Tark word again? _Friends?_ Well, it completely flummoxed poor Ratbag; it was every bit as bewildering as the lack of a single word of gossip about the famous Rebellion.

As Ratbag wandered the ruins, the pervasive sense of unreality only deepened, until he felt as spectral as Celebrimbor, slipping silently through a dream. As he stole through the dwimmer-green gloom, watching from the shadows as troops who should have been sniping at each others’ backs - much as _he’d_ sabotaged camp after camp - instead drank and ate and laughed together, as if friendship were as common among Uruks as Tarks, Ratbag felt as though he were lost in a fantasy: an idealised vision of what the Uruk-hai could have been, if Sauron and Morgoth before him hadn’t twisted them into vicious brutes, savage and spiteful, near-mindless muscle, mere fodder for endless wars.

*

At length, Ratbag’s wanderings brought him to the stately, statue-guarded circle outside the keep that walled in the Tower itself. There, a handful of Uruks were gathered in front of the broad marble steps leading up to the sole gateway in the keep’s wall. They were chanting some Mystic invocation together in deep, dissonant tones, clawed hands raised high in pleading, or kneeling heads bowed in worship.

The gate’s portcullis had been shattered during one attack or another: reduced to a ragged fringe of blackened timbers framing the archway to the Tower. It was clear to Ratbag why no-one had bothered to repair it since the latest battle: it was entirely superfluous to the Tower’s defense. Just inside the archway that gaped like a jagged-fanged maw, a sheet of necromantic flame set all the air ablaze with ghastly green force, forbidding entry more completely than any mere physical barrier.

…Which was bloody awkward, since surely the Overlord who ruled the city would have his headquarters in the Tower that loomed beyond that barrier: the mere sight of which at close range covered Ratbag’s whole shuddering body in cold sweat and gooseflesh.

Several times Ratbag tried to sneak closer to the archway that gaped as if to devour him, but he simply could not force himself to approach it. Then he found a secluded spot and tried to climb the cold stone wall, along whose battlemented edge the necromantic flames leapt and writhed like souls in torment. But at that last, bitter point, Ratbag’s resolve, tested time and again by travel and travail, finally failed him. The clawed fingers and toes that had grown so very skilled at digging hand- and foot-holds from slimy moss and slippery-wet ice and almost-smooth stone, were numbed by the instinctive terror of the malignant dead that all living things feel on some level: they trembled and went weak and lost their grip. Ratbag fell from the wall before he’d barely begun to scale it.

Panting and shaking, Ratbag dove headlong into one of the banks of thick greenery that the Tarks had apparently had some sort of obsession with: if these hedges hadn’t fringed most of the city’s perimeters, Ratbag knew he couldn’t have gone anywhere near this far without being seen.

When he’d got his breath back and rubbed the feeling back into his fingers, Ratbag turned his back on that deceptively-open gateway and continued onward, sneaking around the base of the keep’s encircling wall, hoping to find some loophole, some easier way to get past that last barrier and into the Tower, to finally find out who was the Overlord here and what was really happening with this rumoured rebellion, since repeated failures had convinced him to give up on overhearing anything useful in the conversations of these oddly peaceful Orcs.

Ratbag crept under an arch just beside the keep. Beyond was a walkway whose left edge joined the base of the keep’s wall. But Ratbag’s attention was on the far end of the walkway: it stopped at the foot of one of the small towers at the angles of the keep’s wall. And in the base of that tower Ratbag was delighted to see a small door, wooden and unfortified: definitely the best-looking option he’d seen so far for getting inside the keep. He did wonder why they’d run the risk of putting a relatively flimsy door there, until he crept out of the arch and onto the walkway itself, and saw with a lurch of his stomach that the walkway’s right edge not only lacked a fence or railing of any kind, it jutted out over a precipitous drop into the river far below. He took one hasty sidestep away from that edge, then kept closing the distance to the door, using abandoned siege equipment and the pedestals of a row of those weird drake-like statues for cover.

He’d reached the last statue, the one closest to that door, and - having seen no-one anywhere near the walkway at all - had perhaps grown complacent. Or maybe he was simply a bit too focused on his goal, on getting past that wall and one vital step nearer to the solution of the mystery that had plagued him for so long.

Whatever the reason, he’d been about to break cover for the final dash to the door, when he glanced sideways, at the end of the walkway, where it narrowed to a slim triangle as it met the tower’s wall.

Someone was there!

_No!_

Ratbag froze, body and brain, corpse-still and corpse-cold as the horrific realisation hammered him.

Not someone.

Some _thing!_

**_Nazgûl!_ **

*


	21. The Nazgûl of Minas Morgul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“Isildur’s Ring weighs heavy. It whispers to me like a lover, a jailor.”](https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/pKHt6ZgvjshBI6SGCoC38jG7Qm3XGNTiH5OEOFf5lOx) _\- Talion_
> 
>  

*

The cloaked figure stood on the brink of a high, unnatural cliff, pondering how each cold stone had been shaped by Men; how all of them were now dead, slain by age or disease, torment or war; how every last one of them, no matter how horrific their deaths, was still more fortunate than he.

In the spirit-sight he’d long grown accustomed to, all things material receded into darkness the further they were from him, and the gulf yawning before him was shrouded beneath blackness as profound as the pit.

A rare flash of panicked curiosity lent him brief strength and he wrestled his vision for a moment back to the physical, but the resulting glimpse was no reward for his effort, was hardly less dismal than the dark: the spell-lit cliffsides plunging down, _down_ to the cold river so very far below.

He closed his eyes and yielded, abandoned himself again to the familiar blackness of the wraith world. 

‘No more!’

It would have been so easy, to take one more step. Over the edge, and down. _Falling._

‘If only the fall could kill me. If only my death could solve anything, mean anything. If only I could be free!’

Without his will, his gaze was drawn from the vertigo of the void below, to the burden he bore now: the burning shackle around flesh and bone and soul, that haunted him as much as any Wraith, that bound him beyond breaking to this war-torn, weary world.

(  _You chose this,_  ) the relentless thing hissed into his mind for the millionth time. (  _This path. This fate._  )

All alone, as he had been for so very long, he had nothing to draw his mind away from that insidious influence. It had torn at him and worn at him, until he had nothing left.

(  _You chose to fall._  )

He shifted his weight, preparing to take that one last step…

‘Nazgûl!’ It was like lightning from a clear sky: a burst of shock and terror that came from beyond him; a thought that, for once, was not his own.

Jolted out of the devouring undertow of the fall into the void and the whispering of the Ring, he blinked and turned his head. Even that slight movement was slow; the muscles and joints felt stiff with disuse, and indeed he knew not how long he had stood there, his gaze as downcast as his thoughts: time had long since lost all meaning to him, in the absence of outside distractions.

In the flat blackness of the wraithsight, he scanned for the gory red of an enemy soul: for something that would feel that depth of terror, that shock, at the mere sight of him. He blinked in rare surprise when he could find nothing of the sort. Not a single spark of red; just the usual background constellation of distant soul-stars, all glowing with the blue of allegiance. And closer, much closer to him, a lithe figure crouched, limned in blue light; but its eyes lacked the green glow of the undead, its face lacked the green print of his brand. Its face… was it familiar?

‘No! It can’t be!’

His heart thudded, so hard it was painful: and when was the last time he felt it beat at all?

‘But he left me! _No!_ I frightened him away.’

His hand lifted as if of its own volition, reaching instinctively for that huddled form. His heart pounded again, and he drew a long breath, gathered all his determination. With a wrench, he forced his sight back once more to the world of the flesh.

‘…Ratbag?’

*

With awful slowness, the cloaked figure turned toward Ratbag, but its hood was lowered, casting its head in deep shadow: no hint of a face could be seen. Nothing but a pair of eyes that burned like live coals. Their flaming glow was a threat as vivid as a drawn sword, blazing amid the blackness of the hood, the cold green of the witchfire all around, and the colder white of the full moon, leering behind its head like an unholy halo. 

The Nazgûl took a step closer, another, its armoured feet spectre-soundless on the stone, and Ratbag’s knees abruptly gave way under him, dumping him in a quivering huddle on the ground. Ratbag shuddered, paralysed by terror, then exploded into movement, scrambling backward in blind panic, until his back thudded against the cold stone of the statue’s plinth. The towering dark shape stalked closer, then sank silently into a crouch, looming over Ratbag. With sinister slowness, one gauntleted hand reached for him. One steel-clawed fingertip traced the line of Ratbag’s cheekbone under his eye, with a cold but eerily gentle touch.

The Nazgûl drew a long, hissing breath. The hooded head lowered further, tilted; those burning eyes narrowed, their fire building, furnace-bright. Ratbag could almost feel his skin growing hot under that blazing scrutiny.

Then, all at once, the Nazgûl _entered Ratbag’s mind_ , slipping in with the same shadowy, instant ease that She had shown.

*

‘Ratbag!’

When he could see the body before him with the eyes of the living, he was all but certain. Distantly he felt pleased surprise at the added muscle. But when he made mental contact, he _knew_.

‘It _is_ him!’

But all joy was quenched beneath an icy wave of anguish. The realisation nearly broke him: it _was_ Ratbag, but _Ratbag was terrified of him_ , thought him already fallen, already a Nazgûl!

As he withdrew from Ratbag’s mind, on impulse he stole a single glance out at the world through the Orc’s eyes. It was a terrible risk to take: inwardly he was already cringing at the thought of seeing the monster he had become to Ratbag.

Then, just for a moment, he could see how deep the shadow of his hood was; how with the full moon bright behind his head, his face was shrouded from even the night-sharp eyes of an Orc.

With that realisation, he withdrew from Ratbag’s mind completely. If his desperate hope was wrong, he knew that the feel of Ratbag’s disgust and horror first-hand would push him over the final brink, into the fall he'd been fighting for so long.

Then, driven to the last extremity, he stood and flung back his hood, baring his ravaged face to the light of the moon and the glow of witchfire and the final verdict of… of the only one alive he loved.

*

The Nazgûl never spoke into Ratbag’s mind, not like She had done. This time, the contact was mercifully brief: Ratbag only felt a momentary sense of searching, then a recoil that was so swift it felt impossibly as though the _Nazgûl_ had been shaken by something he’d found in _Ratbag’s_ mind!

Ratbag blinked, his vision swam for a moment - and no wonder, his heart was pounding so fast from panic he should’ve blacked out - and then the Nazgûl straightened up from that looming crouch over him, and with one imperious toss of his head, the deep hood was flung back, and for the first time Ratbag could see his face.

So strange… Skin corpse-pallid, scrawled all over with a writhing web of veins black with cursed blood. Deep in shadowy sockets, those lurid eyes glared down, transfixing Ratbag with a wildfire-bright stare.

…And yet, so familiar. The handsome face that had haunted all of Ratbag’s wistful memories, and his every yearning dream, through each long night and lonely day he’d endured, ever since that terrible day back in Gorgoroth, so long ago.

“Talion?” Ratbag breathed, hope lighting up his face as he unconsciously gathered himself up and rose out of that abject huddle. “Is it really you?” A tremulous smile dawned as he held out his hands to the Man before him, begging his hopeless dream to at last be real. “They said you were dead!” Ratbag added, then a huff of pure nerves spluttered out of him, surprising them both. “…For real, I mean.” Because, no matter what, Ratbag still could never think of Talion’s final death as ‘for _good’._ Green-gold eyes searched red-gold, flickering as Ratbag took in all the details of Talion’s changed appearance. 

And just like that, Talion was back inside Ratbag’s mind. As he inclined his head in a slow, stately gesture of acknowledgement, his voice murmured soundlessly, sadly, ‘Yes. I was dying. But I couldn’t just… turn my back on the world. Not while it was still in danger. Not while Sauron - not while that Eye - still lives.’

The shock of that instant mental contact, the sheer effortless ease of it, without the slightest attempt at a branding touch, sent a chill down Ratbag’s spine: Talion had never had any such power before. The elation in Ratbag’s expression dimmed and his brows twisted with worry as he whispered, “What happened to you? _Talk_ to me!”

Mutely, Talion held up his left hand. The flare of curse-light from the cruel gouge of the Hammer’s mace was joined now by a second blaze of malicious magic: the baleful orange eye of a gem, claw-set in a heavy, unfamiliar Ring. Ratbag swallowed a sudden lump in his throat as he stared at it.

Talion coughed, croaked out, “I chose this…” before coughing again, struggling to clear his throat, “…this Ring”. His physical voice was so strange, nothing like the achingly familiar, mellow tones with which he’d spoken inside Ratbag’s mind: instead it was harsh and hoarse, rusty with disuse. It was as if he’d lost the habit of speech.

With an inward pang, Ratbag realised that, with this eerie new ability to speak directly into the mind, that might well be exactly what had happened to him. Maybe it was even _easier_ for him now, to just reach right inside others’ heads, than it was to draw a breath, and take the time to speak aloud, as the living do.

Talion coughed again, panted, glaring down at the ring on his hand; the stone in it seemed to glare back up at him. “It was… left behind, by the Nazgûl I slew.” Talion husked, then swallowed repeatedly, perhaps falling silent to let the ramifications of what he’d just said sink in, perhaps to work his throat and gather breath for more speech. Then he continued, in tones that started out still rough and hoarse, but gradually as he went on, he began bit by bit to sound more like his old self, “It was either that, or let Celebrimbor enslave him, as the elf thought he’d already enslaved me. As, I now know, he meant to enslave the world.”

Talion bowed his head, murmured low and sorrowful, “You were right all along to flee from him, from both of us. I argued against that shaming, in the beginning. But in the end, I still gave in, and went along with what he wanted. He held too much sway over me already, but I couldn’t see it then. Your leaving should have been warning enough to me; but to my shame…” Talion sighed, half turning away, “…it was not. I almost went along with him, all the way to Barad-dûr. His attempt to enslave that Nazgûl was what it finally took, to make me rebel: to show me what my fate would have been, had he won his long war with Sauron.”

“But what’ll…” Ratbag’s voice choked off, and the question hung in the air, too terrible to ask.

“What will my fate be, now?” Talion’s voice, though still husky with disuse, was very gentle. Ratbag nodded, and Talion gave him one of his wry, fond smiles. “Well, I’ve lasted this long. It hasn’t beaten me yet!”

(  _You will fall,_  ) Isildur’s Ring hissed into Talion’s mind, (  _just like all the rest._  )

“Who knows?” Talion’s smile brightened gamely to a lopsided grin and he spread his hands in a shrug. “Maybe it won’t! Now that you’ve come back to me, Ratbag. _My_ Orc.”

With those words, with that smile, the truth of it was finally clear to Ratbag. Despite all that time fighting alone, against both the Eye and the Ring; despite all the differences in his appearance and the strangeness of his new mental power, this was still Talion!

 _Not_ a Nazgûl, not a Shrieker, not one of the Faceless Shades, the Hollow Men, the Nine Terrors under Sauron’s command!

 _Talion!_ Alive, and here! _His Talion!_

A wordless shout of joy burst from Ratbag, raw need given voice, as he flung himself bodily at Talion, threw his arms around the tall Man’s neck, heedlessly crumpling the hood that had seemed to shroud horror mere minutes ago: so intense was his need to just… _hold_ him. Just hold onto _his Talion_ and never, _ever_ let go again.

Strong arms, clad in cold unfamiliar armor, slid around Ratbag’s body and tightened in a crushing grip. Ratbag let out his breath in a shaky, sobbing laugh as he was pressed, chest to chest, against Talion’s broad, muscled body, as the Man effortlessly lifted him a little higher.

Then they were _kissing_ , just like they used to do, and Ratbag discovered, against all odds, that corpse-bluish lips could still feel soft and warm.

*


	22. I Will Not Let Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [“I am the Nazgûl of Minas Morgul - and I will not let go!”](https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/MdGOiWxCEDq6HRz15rETYbDTcwIOt1FBBXIMK4ocKTy)  _\- Talion_

*

So long, he’d been alone; and he’d known, with utter, bitter certainty, that he was doomed to loneliness for the rest of his accursed existence, no matter how many centuries loomed ahead. With only the Ring for company, he’d begun to blame himself for the loss of everyone he’d ever loved: his family ( _She wanted to leave, but you made her stay_ ) and his friend ( _He wanted to stay, but you drove him away._ ) He’d even begun to feel a dull, downcast resignation to his lonely fate ( _You deserve nothing else. You chose this._ )

So this, right here, right now, was joy beyond his darkened dreams: his long-lost lover, not only _alive_ , but _here, with him_ , clinging to him, laughing and sobbing and stretching to kiss him, a warm and wriggling armful of life.

‘He chose this!’ Talion exulted inwardly in this reversal of one of his tormentor’s refrains, ‘He chose me!’

The Ring, for once, was silent.

*

He’d been alone so long; and he’d been so damn sure that lonely was all he’d ever be, for the rest of his miserable life, however long _that_ ’d last. He’d spent so long torturing himself, wondering what he’d done wrong, blaming himself for losing his lover to the callous coldness of the wraith. Lately - when he’d woken yet again in the dead of night, alone as always, from another bitter dream - he’d even begun to blame himself for falling for the Man in the first place: what the hell had he been thinking? As if an Orc - especially a scrawny little runt like him - belonged with a Tark! No, it was only fitting that he should be alone, and if he couldn’t deal with it, then that was just one more of his many faults.

So this, right here, right now, surpassed his wildest hopes, was so incredible he felt like he was dreaming again. But this was so much better than any dream could ever be, because it was _real_ : the lover he’d thought dead for so long, not only _alive_ , but _here, holding him,_ strong arms wrapping around his body, lifting him higher; accepting his kiss, returning it, deepening it.

*

The kiss broke, Ratbag gasping for breath then huffing more disbelieving, joyous chuckles, leaning back in to nuzzle and mouth at Talion’s jaw; the scrape of stubble - longer than before, almost a beard - making his lips tingle. Talion gave a hoarse, inarticulate rasp of mingled eagerness and frustration, and Ratbag leaned back just far enough to take in the preoccupied furrow of his brow and see his strange bright eyes go distant, flickering as if searching for something.

Ratbag had been here before, though; he had a good idea of what was bothering Talion, since he remembered all too clearly the ending of their previous reunion kiss. ‘We can’t do this here,’ the Ranger had said, and in his characteristic concern for others, had taken pains to arrange a comfortable spot for their tryst. In fact, as far as Ratbag was concerned, he’d gone to far too much trouble. Right now, Ratbag was in absolutely no mood for wasting a single moment with food and chit-chat. So he did his best to nip any delay in the bud, craning to lip teasingly at Talion’s earlobe, and whisper, “Bed! Now!”

He felt the Man shiver - at the sensation, the words, or both - and impossibly tighten his embrace. Then Ratbag’s stomach dropped in a disorienting burst of vertigo, as the world dissolved in a swirling flare of green power. He squeezed his eyes closed, fighting down nausea and panic as he felt a blurring rush of movement at impossible speed. The next moment, the hardness of stone pressed up again under his feet and the world stabilised around him once more, but he had to take a moment to swallow down residual dizziness, burying his face in a broad, cloaked shoulder.

Even before Ratbag opened his eyes, he knew they were no longer on that high, airy walkway beside the keep: the air had gone utterly still, and was now heavy with the smell of dust. Ratbag lifted his head from Talion’s shoulder and loosened his embrace, looking around, curious to see where he’d been taken. Now they were standing in a vaulted, windowless chamber of the same pale, carved stone that made up the Tarks’ city. It was already lit with burning braziers, but the flames glowed with the same eerie emerald as the Tower, and cast no heat. Another new power of Talion’s, or something to do with the Tower itself? Was that where they were now?

Ratbag forgot to ask, so startled was he when he looked beyond the sorcerous fire. The walls behind each brazier were pierced, floor to ceiling, with open niches, and in all the niches lay corpses withered to skeletons clad in leathery hide and rags, so old their reek lurked almost buried beneath the cloying scent of dust. ‘What the hell? This is a _tomb!’_

Strangest and most startling of all were the twin statues in the chamber’s corners: larger than life sculptures of _that fucking Elf!_ This was the last straw: it prodded an instinctive yelp of protest out of Ratbag, “What’re we doing _here?”_

*

When Ratbag teased his earlobe with his lips, when the humid curl of breath tickled his ear with that hotly whispered plea, Talion burst into instant, instinctive action: holding his Orc close and reaching impulsively for his power. Too impatient to wait another moment, he flung them instantly through space at the goal his lover had set for him. _Bed. Now._

He’d never used his power to carry another person with him, but he knew instinctively that it would work: after all he’d never had problems carrying any amount of gear. But in his need he hadn’t thought of the impact on Ratbag. When the little Orc still clung to him, shivering and gulping, after they arrived, Talion bowed his head and pressed his lips to Ratbag’s stringy dark hair, his palms slowly stroking that tense spine.

When Ratbag calmed, took a step back and began to look around, Talion felt a moment of relief at this swift recovery.

That relief was all too shortlived.

The next instant, when Ratbag’s eyes widened in shock, when Ratbag’s question slapped him, Talion’s heart which had been soaring in the clouds, plummeted sickeningly into the depths of despair.

Ratbag had asked to be taken to bed, and instead Talion had dragged him into a crypt.

Talion had flown instinctively to the closest approximation to a place of rest that was left to him now. He’d gone so long without actual, natural sleep; but down here, far beneath the Tower, in the cold and the silence, surrounded by the ancient dead, was the only place he’d found where he could lay his body down, close his eyes, and sink into a meditative trance that, if it didn’t entirely silence his mind - or the insidious whispering of the Ring - at least it hushed both, for a while.

Now, Ratbag’s question raised other questions: ‘What am I becoming? What sort of monster am I already: a literal Gravewalker? A Barrow-Wight?’ Rising panic racked Talion and he babbled a few broken words in an incoherent attempt to reply, even as he backed away from the one he’d been holding so close: retreating from Ratbag, in a last-ditch effort to save the Orc from the peril of his presence.

*

The shock Ratbag felt when he’d realised where they were, his outrage when he’d seen those statues glorifying one of those he’d Vowed to fight: all these paled into insignificance when he saw the anguish wring Talion’s face, saw him flinch at that question as if the words were poisoned blades, saw his gaze fall guiltily from Ratbag’s face, flicking around the room in a frantic, hunted look, saw him _start to back away_ , stammering, “Bed… I… I don’t… I’m sorry, so sorry…“

As Talion sidled away, toward the door, he moved to put between them the huge stone sarcophagus in the centre of the room; and as Ratbag moved to stop him, he saw for the first time that the sheet of dust on its flat lid had been disturbed: there was a patch of stone wiped clear, and its outline was shaped as though someone had been lying there. Someone taller and broader than Ratbag. Someone shrouded in a cloak.

Ratbag gave a little moan of distress: at the mental image of his Talion driven to this wretched act, lying on a sarcophagus surrounded by corpses; at the sight of Talion now, backing away from Ratbag, fear - fear of hurting him - stark on his death-pale face.

“Wait!” Ratbag cried, reaching out toward the shadowy figure even as he started to melt into the darkness of the archway, imploring him with every line of his face and body, “Don’t leave me! Take me with you! Please, Talion!”

The desperate cry rang in the vaulted ceiling, made the spectral flames quiver. Halted Talion in his tracks. For a breath, two, he stood on the threshold, trembling minutely with agonised indecision, then the tension broke and with a dry-eyed sob he closed the distance in a few bounding strides, swept arms and cloak around Ratbag’s body, and the tomb was gone in a gyre of green fire.

*

This time when the dizzying, whirling sense of terrifying speed subsided, the air around Ratbag, though still motionless, lacked the chokingly-heavy scent of dust over ancient rot. He swallowed and opened his eyes, lifting his head from Talion’s shoulder, though now he refused to loosen the clawed clutch of his arms around the Man’s armoured body as he looked around.

They were standing together in the centre of a circular hall, as vast as any Fortress’ throne room. A glazed dome let in wide white beams from the full moon: enough light for Ratbag to make out the whole space. Columns around the walls supported second- and third-storey walkways lined with toppled bookcases and smashed display cabinets, and the floor was a mosaic of symbols that had become familiar to Ratbag during his time searching the Tark city: the winged crown, the tree and stars, the eight-pointed star, and a fourth symbol that was more familiar to Ratbag than all the rest put together. It was emblazoned on the breast of Talion’s original armour, and on his leather and fur cloak (wherever they’d gone): the spiky silhouette of the Black Gate, with the tree and stars above it. Once, Talion had told him it was the sigil of the Rangers of the Morannon. Ratbag stepped back just far enough to slide one hand around the Man’s body and rest his palm on the armour over the Man’s heart. His clawtips ticked and scraped on the embossed black metal, which bore no sigil at all. Even though they’d been standing pressed body to body a moment ago, the steel plates were cold to touch.

Ratbag sighed, but before he could draw breath to ask where they were now, as if Talion had expected the question he took a single step back, easing gently out of their embrace, half-turning, so that behind him, Ratbag could now see a small plinth, and upon it a waist-high pedestal covered in a black cloth. Along with that sight came a murmur that bypassed his ears, whispering directly into his mind, ‘It is the Scrying-Stone of Minas Morgul, the Palantír. I can fly to it instantly, and to lesser stones atop towers throughout Mordor…’

Ratbag winced, remembering far too many lonely vigils beneath such towers: waiting for Talion to return to life, return to him.

Perhaps mistaking that flinch for a reaction to the mental contact, Talion cleared his throat and continued in a mournful murmur, so low it barely broke the silence, “…and I can fly to Elven catacombs, as you saw. Before, I always thought that was Celebrimbor’s influence, but now…” Regret ached in Talion’s voice, twisted his face as he turned away from Ratbag to stare at the shrouded Palantír, “…now I know I am drawn to the dead.”

Fear stabbed at Ratbag, fear for Talion, but hot on its heels outrage arose, outrage on his poor Man’s behalf, and determination swiftly followed. “No! Nonono! Ranger, you’ve got it all wrong!” he cried, hurrying to stand before Talion once more, putting himself between the Man and the covered Stone. “If that was true, you’d be flying off to battlefields and fight pits and everywhere else in Mordor! Everywhere else in the world!” Frantic, he searched Talion’s expression. 

In Talion’s glowing eyes, the blink of surprise was unmistakable. Dark brows lowered in thought. 

“See? You can’t though, can you!” Ratbag grinned, eager to make his point. “Because you’re not drawn to death! Are those Seeing Stones dead? I don’t think so!” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at  the shrouded pedestal, gamely ignoring the prickle between his shoulderblades that felt distinctly like a malevolent Eye glaring blindly in his direction. “And as for those tombs, Elves haven’t been around Mordor since Sauron came here, and that was thousands and thousands of years ago! D’you reckon there’d be even bones left after that long, without some sort of powerful spell?” His grin widened into a triumphant beam as he drove the point home, “It’s not death you’re drawn to, it’s just magic!”

And there it was - a more magical sight, as far as Ratbag was concerned, than all the tombs and towers and Stones in Mordor - the slow dawning of Talion’s lopsided, affectionate smile; the crinkle of fondness at the corners of his eyes: just the same as ever, despite their new glow. “It’s not ‘just magic’ I’m drawn to…” Talion husked, quiet and deep as he closed the distance between them, caught Ratbag’s hands up in his, thumbs rubbing tender circles on their bony backs, “…it’s you.”

Talion dived in, swift as a striking serpent, catching Ratbag by surprise, snatching a single, smacking kiss like a decisive promise of more; then he released one of the Orc’s hands, tightened his grip on the other, and turned for the archway out of the hall. His long strides had Ratbag trotting to stay beside him, determined not to lose contact. Although the taloned black gauntlet was still cool, Ratbag thought he could feel a hint of warmth beneath, seeping out between the intricate joints. That thought - and the exertion of their shared eagerness - brought heat to his own face as they hurried together up sweeping flights of stairs and along one ornate, deserted corridor after another, the Ranger unhesitating at every turn.

Reaching the end of one such corridor, they entered a circular, glass-domed hall, very like the Palantír hall, but on a much smaller scale: only one storey tall, surrounded by arched doors, all closed. Instead of that ominous, shrouded pedestal, this hall centred around a large stone fountain, still running: in the silence the low trickle of water echoed softly around the curved walls. They circled the fountain, Talion leading Ratbag to the largest arch, opposite the corridor leading out.

Talion seized both handles of the tall double doors and flung them wide with a single, impatient flex of his arms; clouds of dust motes billowed out from the gloom beyond, glinting in the moonlit hall like tiny stars. The quiet patter of Ratbag’s sandals on the stone outside went silent, as together they entered a thickly carpeted room, much darker than the sky-lit hall outside. Ratbag could just make out tapestry- and portrait-hung walls, in a few paper-thin rays of moonlight that slipped through narrow gaps between long, cobwebbed curtains. Then his attention was caught by the most unbelievably luxurious bed he’d ever seen in his life: a hip-high mound of mattresses and quilts and pillows that looked thick enough to swallow him whole, beneath a wooden canopy hung with more curtains tied back to its four tall, carved posts. All of this finery was grey with a thin layer of undisturbed dust.

But Ratbag wasn’t given much time to boggle at this latest example of  how odd some Tarks could be. There was a rustle of cloth behind him, followed by a couple of metallic clanks, and when he turned back, the Man was gazing at him, his eyes vivid in the near-total darkness: his discarded cloak lay in a heap of black cloth on the carpet, Urfael and Acharn atop it. Ratbag watched him tear off his gauntlets and drop them, his hands dropping at once to his sides to undo the straps of his breastplate.

As Ratbag blinked at him, mesmerised by that intent stare, Talion tilted his head, and rasped “Well?”

Ratbag huffed wordless laughter, half eagerness, half nerves, and tore his eyes away from Talion with an effort, busying himself with getting his own kit off as fast as Orcishly possible. True to his usual luck, in his case more haste meant less speed, and at one point he was staggering around on one foot, cursing up a storm, as his shaky, sweaty hands tugged at a recalcitrant knot in a sandal strap, which came loose suddenly enough to dump him on the floor. ‘At least this weird rug’s softer than stone,’ Ratbag shrugged mentally and decided to stay put for the moment - at least he couldn’t fall any further - and concentrated on fumbling his belt open and wriggling out of his breeches in record time.

He kicked the last scrap of clothing off and scrambled to his feet, panting, just in time to see Talion shove his braies down and step out of them. A pallid shape in the gloom, the details indistinct, he closed the distance between them in a few determined strides, and they were kissing again, this time without a stitch between them. Body to body, and Ratbag gasped into the kiss at the sensations: the Man’s skin sliding smooth as parchment against him; the strange texture of chest hair rubbing and teasing at his peaked nipples; then, after a shift of their hips, the hard push of Talion’s erection against his own.

At that, Talion broke the kiss, hissing through his teeth, his eyes narrowing to golden slits.

It must’ve been an expression of pleasure, but Ratbag couldn’t properly make out Talion’s dear, dearly missed face: all that was clear to the Orc was the sound the Man made, and the strange new glow of his eyes. Abruptly, Ratbag realised he was desperate to see every detail of Talion’s reactions, as desperate as his solicitous lover had always been to see Ratbag’s own.

“H-hang on,” Ratbag panted, slipping out of Talion’s arms and turning for the row of heavily curtained windows. But a strong hand closed around his upper arm, swung him around again, as effortless as if Ratbag weighed nothing. “Wait, wait, it’ll just take a moment,” Ratbag pleaded, eyes flicking from that fiery, demanding glare to the windows, and when the only reply was a jerk on his arm that brought him stumbling back to collide against a chest almost as hard and cool and immovable as a statue’s, the little Orc’s voice rose to a frantic cry, “I want to _see!”_

‘I’ve missed you so much! I want you so much!’ Ratbag might as well have added aloud. ‘I _need_ to _see you!’_

In response, Ratbag was frogmarched away from the curtains, to the far side of the room. With the hand not occupied in holding him, Talion reached for a strange, tall contraption standing by the wall, dragged it closer, turned it around so it faced them.

Ratbag blinked, startled to see himself. His free hand lifted, and the other Ratbag’s hand copied the movement. Talion released his arm, and Ratbag took one step closer to this strange vision. His clawtips clicked and slid on the smoothness of glass.

Glass! A mirror! But far larger, and far clearer than any mirror Ratbag had ever seen before, despite the dust. It was set in a sturdy wooden frame that let it tilt, and was tall and wide enough to show him from head to toe, standing bare as the day he was spawned, caught in a thin, mote-flecked ray of moonlight and looking thoroughly wrongfooted. Usually, Uruks just used the shiniest bits of their shields or armour or blades if they wanted to see themselves, and the few purpose-made mirrors he’d ever seen were just sheets of steel, polished-up shield offcuts small enough to hold in one hand.

Ratbag started to turn to face Talion, “What…” But a strong hand clamped on his shoulder, spun him around to face the strange, huge mirror again, shifting him sideways a little until he was once more pinned beneath the ray of moonlight, like a hellhawk shot by an arrow. Talion moved with him, crowding close behind him, blanketing his back like a heavy cloak. One thick arm curled around his waist, holding him still. The other hand cupped the line of his jaw slowly, fingertips carding softly through his sparse, straggly beard, before gently, irresistibly, turning his head back to face the mirror again. 

Talion leaned down, and nuzzled at the back of Ratbag’s ear, which flicked reflexively, tapping him in the nose. The Man huffed - it might’ve been amusement, might’ve been annoyance, impossible to tell with his face half hidden by Ratbag’s head - and murmured, in a voice so low Ratbag could feel the rumble of it in the hard body pressed to his back, “You want to see? Then _see!”_ The hiss of the last word sent breath coiling over the sensitive skin of Ratbag’s ear, and he shuddered. Gooseflesh erupted all over his body as the ripple of his own shivering rubbed his spine against Talion’s sculpted torso, and he felt the thick bar of the Man’s arousal filling the small of his back.

As intense as the sensations were for Ratbag, the sight was something utterly outside his experience. Himself, staring wide-eyed at himself, as the hand that had caressed his jaw moved upward, fingertips sliding teasingly over the rings in his lip before nudging at his mouth, demanding entrance. His eyelids went heavy and he watched through a haze of eyelashes and arousal as he suckled wetly, revelling in the taste of the Man’s skin, even as he noticed changes - a heavier musk, a hint of smoke and dust and old blood - that might’ve had something to do with the dark veins that now webbed Talion’s skin.

Then that thought, and all others, was driven from Ratbag’s mind, as Talion’s other arm uncurled from around his waist, as his pale hand went spidering down Ratbag’s quivering body and seized his upthrust shaft in a firm, proprietary grip; pumping it slowly, in time with the slick in-and-out slide of his fingers past Ratbag’s lips.

As if that grip wrung all the strength from his body, Ratbag’s shaking legs gave way, but Talion caught him with ease, his arms cradling the Orc’s slimmer body as he lowered them both to kneel on the carpeted floor. Thickly corded thighs pushed between Ratbag’s so that he was kneeling astride Talion’s lap, arching his hips up to pump his wet cock again and again through the Man’s grasping fist.

He inhaled sharply through his nose as he felt Talion nuzzling through his hair, stirring it with his own panting breath, and gasped when the slowly sliding fingers left his mouth with a soft, wet sound like a kiss. Sitting as he was, his legs splayed shamelessly wide, everything was on display: his speartip glistening with wetness, popping in and out of that pale, clenched fist, his bollocks already drawn up tight to his groin, all caught in that solitary ray of moonlight. He gasped again when wet, clawless fingers circled his hole once then slid deep with no more warning than that, slicking the way, before sliding free. The arm curled around his waist hitched him higher up Talion’s thighs, then his breathing stuttered to a halt at the first nudge of the thick tip of Talion’s cock into his crease: searching, catching on his rim, then relentless pressure, forcing his hole wider, until with a sudden burning shove he was breached, yowling sharply at the shock of pain and delight.

‘…it’s been so long…’

At once the Man set an urgent pace, hips slamming up to spear him deep, deeper, impossibly deep, rocking Ratbag’s whole body with each thrust, until he felt glorious friction all the way up his bristling spine. Tiny, tense, fractured noises were shaken out of him as the hand not clamped tight around his ribs kept stroking his swollen cock; that strong fist sliding easily from tip to root, veined skin glistening with the clear slickness of Ratbag’s excitement.

Through all this wild exertion, the Man was almost silent, but beneath his own half-choked cries, Ratbag could just make out broken, sobbing breaths, muffled by the way Talion’s lips were moving on the skin of Ratbag’s shoulders, in constant, hungry kisses.

The fierce forcefulness of this fuck was even less of a problem for Ratbag than such things would've been for most other Orcs. In fact, he’d thought before that, if anything, his Ranger tended to be a bit too cautious, too tentative with sex. Now, Ratbag could feel heat building between them, rising swiftly toward explosion: by now all pain had faded, and physically, it was pure pleasure.

Mentally… 

Ratbag blinked away the sweat of exertion and focused again on the mirror, and the sight of himself, legs sprawled so wide over the Man’s tensing thighs that he could even glimpse the base of that wet shaft pistoning into him. He could see one vein-scrawled arm, pallid in the moonlight, clamped tight around him with all the strength of desperation, sliding his whole body up and down on Talion’s thick erection as easily as a doll. He could see Talion’s other fist clutching possessively at his cock, determined to wring his climax from him.

If only he could see _Talion._

But ever since they’d sunk to the floor together, the Man he loved had kept his head lowered, his face pressed to Ratbag’s shoulder, and the angle and the fall of his hair screened his face from view. All Ratbag could see was the top of his bowed head.

“Talion?” he managed to gasp.

But before Ratbag could gather enough of his rapidly scattering wits to bring his vague concern into focus, there was a low sob behind him, and a thrust so hard and deep it lifted his curling toes clean off the floor. The jolt of it made the room blur around him, and abruptly he was _gone:_ convulsing so hard he pitched forward and had to grab the frame of the strange mirror for balance, digging his claws into the wood and hanging on desperately as he emptied his bollocks all over the dusty glass in one long spurt after another.

He stayed there, shuddering through the aftershocks, dazedly watching the thick splatters of his own come start to trickle slowly down the glass, as Talion wrapped both arms around his waist and his punishing rhythm shattered into a few more erratic thrusts before the Man froze, buried to the hilt.

Now that the roaring of blood in Ratbag’s ears was ebbing and his own strained cries had fallen silent, the mingled sound of their breathing seemed loud in the stillness. For the space of a few more breaths they stayed like that, Ratbag feeling the feverish force of Talion’s hold on him ease, then he felt Talion shifting his weight, moving to stand.

Ratbag sighed with one last burst of physical pleasure, as he felt the liquid slide of Talion’s softening length slipping out of him. Then, with a supreme effort, he too gathered his strengthless limbs under him and staggered to his feet, as ungainly as any Orc still wet from the vat.

Talion was already striding across the room; as Ratbag clung again to the mirror, waiting until his balance stabilised, he watched Talion circle the opulent bed and carefully drag the topmost quilt with its layer of dust to the floor, before turning back the remaining covers and sliding in.

Again, Ratbag felt the same instinctive unease he’d felt after their first time together: was this it? Now that they’d had their reunion, would the conquering lord of this strange Tark city think of him like all those other Uruks he’d seen on the way here? Would he be dismissed like any other Orc minion?

As if in answer to his inward misgivings, Talion crooked a smile at him, and flung back the covers on the side of that huge bed nearest him.

“Well?” Talion husked. He even sounded like he’d done before, but this time Ratbag thought he heard more amused warmth beneath it, and less urgent heat.

Beaming, Ratbag seized Talion’s tacit invitation, and threw himself headlong at the bed.

It was every bit as soft as it looked.

*


	23. Glossary and Notes

**Glossary**

I'm basing the Black Speech/Orcish in this story primarily on David Salo's work. He's the linguist who worked on the films. The games are also using his work: _shrakh_ is one of his words.

This link covers all the relevant sections of his blog, on both Orcish and Black Speech. <https://midgardsmal.com/category/orkish/>

If a word or fragment below is _italicised_ , it is Orcish or Black Speech from David Salo’s page above, or from the games.

 

 _agormol / agramol_ = _agor/agra_ ‘blood’ + _mol_ ‘ally’ - blood-brother/ blood-brothers + _-un_ ‘impersonal verbal suffix, one (archaic)’ 

_agnakhshza_ = _agnakh_ ‘return’ + _-sh_ ‘3rd person suffix -he/she/it/they’ + _-za_ ‘1st person possessive suffix, my’

 _kaira_ ‘life’

 _bun_ ‘two’ / twice

 _zey_ ‘light’ (A reference to Ar-Zey’s white hide - we see this pallor a lot on Mystic and Cursed Ologs and Uruks in Shadow of War)

‘gora’ = Russian for mountain ,   _gor_ ‘death/kill’ (I don’t normally use other languages, but I just couldn’t resist this bilingual pun: Ur-Gora was the largest Olog in the Tribe for a long time, until the Twins reached maturity!)

‘karhu’ = Finnish for bear (A reference to the polar bear character from Tolkien’s “The Father Christmas Letters”)

 _ruzad_ ‘come upon, happen on’ (A reference to how Ratbag first met Ur-Ruzad by chance in the forest)

 

 _Kirgkirzadkil_ = _kirg_ ‘mountain pass’ + _kirzad_ ‘toothed, dangerous’ + _kil_ ‘hidden’

Actually, a faithful translation would be something like “Hidden Perilous Pass” which is decidedly longwinded and purple, but probably doing pretty good at approximating canon, since the Olog-hai, the Nazgûl, the Mouth of Sauron, and Sauron himself are canonically the only people who actually remember and speak pure Black Speech, so the Black Speech the Olog-hai speak would probably sound very archaic to poor Ratbag (and Brûz, as he mentioned in-game to Talion that he ‘can’t speak a bloody word of it’), so archaic it’s not even like Shakespearean English sounds to us; more like the Old English from Beowulf: utterly unintelligible except for the odd word here and there. 

I tend to think Ologs are to scrappy Orcs as Ents are to scrappy Hobbits: similar tendency to adopt them adorably, carry them around on their shoulders, grumble at them in deep voices, etc.

 

 _Êshar_ ‘Wanderer’ = _êsh_ ‘alone’ + _har_ ‘travel, move’

 _ginmi_ = _gin_ ‘report, news’+ _-m(i)_ ‘1st plural suffix, we’

 _kab_ ‘have’

 

**Notes**

**Olog-hai, Uruk-hai, and Differences in Natural and Artificial Reproductive Biologies**

(Cor gosh scholarly eh wot? Cop the bloody cheek of me, a non-Biologist! ;)

I’ve given Az-Harto a twin brother, on the assumption that, being so reclusive, his tribe of Ferals don’t have access to ‘high tech’ and would simply have to be reproducing in the usual low-tech manner, like the beasts the Ferals admire / hunt / master / train.

I also thought there had to be some very compelling reason why Olog-hai are always such a tiny minority in Shadow of War, when they would obviously be much more desirable than Uruk-hai as weapons of war. I figured that the vat process of mass-producing troops in huge numbers very quickly, simply couldn’t be made to work with Olog-hai.

I'm also assuming that: a) Olog-hai are not at all sexually dimorphic, either by appearance or by scent (outside their very rare heats), so it’d be impossible for non-Olog-hai to tell the sexes apart b) Being extremely long-lived, they naturally reproduce very rarely, and c) Both Black Speech and Orcish takes the ‘he’-as-default-pronoun thing to a much greater extreme than English ever did.

All this is in sharp contrast to the more modernised / militarised Uruk-hai under Sauron’s control who (like Saruman’s Uruk-hai we saw in the movies) are bred in all-male batches in vats (by Vat-Keeper and Alchemist Uruk-hai, judging from their in-game comments to Talion, possibly with Necromancer Uruk-hai), purely for the practicality of rapid troop creation/replacement.

Random in-game chatter alludes to Uruk corpses being recycled into the vats. One I overheard went something like this: “I had a close call the other day, and _someone else’s_ life flashed before my eyes. That’s not normal, is it?” “I think you’ve been through the vats a few too many times!”

This practice of recycling (“Reduce, Reuse, Reanimate?” I’m sure Zog would approve!) even gives rise to tantalising hints of the Uruk-hai having vague concepts of reincarnation: I could _swear_ I’ve heard in-game chatter discussing ‘coming back as’ another type of Uruk. I’ll definitely post them here if I ever overhear them again…

 

**Ratbag the Meat Hoarder**

Ratbag is actually what that wonderful rabbit-hole of a site, TVTropes, refers to as an [Ascended Extra](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/AscendedExtra/VideoGames): he was originally just a randomly generated character in an alpha-code demo, but the developers loved him too much to let him stay that way, just like they (and we!) loved him too much to let him stay dead in the second game! BTW, 'ratbag' is very well-established (i.e. dating back to at least the early 20th century) Aussie slang for an eccentric character: originally it was a term of abuse, but these days it's much too mild for real abuse, and is almost always used affectionately. Ironically, 'Ratbag' is also one of the few in-game Orc names that could be a _canon_ Orc name: combining the second syllables of Shag _rat_ and Gor _bag._

I was thrilled to find IGN had posted [the original alpha-code demo of Shadow of Mordor](http://www.ign.com/videos/2014/01/23/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-talion-hunts-down-ratbag) where 'Ratbag the Meat Hoarder' made his debut: as you'll see, he's a slightly different character from the Ratbag we all know and love. He's even voiced by one of the standard randomly generated orc voice actors: Dwight Schultz I believe, rather than by Phil LaMarr, the final Ratbag's voice actor. But then, this being an alpha-code demo, none of the final voice acting was in place yet.

 

**Caragor Fat and Orcs**

I owe the inspiration for the idea that caragor fat is the Orcish equivalent to whipped cream - with ALL of the X-rated connotations of whipped cream! - to random in-game chatter where grunts talk about how the Tailor wants Talion's skin, and debate different ways for him to get it. One Orc suggests the Tailor should 'rub him all over with caragor fat'! The _instant_ I heard _that,_ well of course my warped mind jumped to the kinkiest possible interpretation!


End file.
